


Safe As Houses

by Mix Stitch (Synph)



Category: DCU
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Politics, Background Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, F/M, Feudalism, Flirting, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other: See Story Notes, Racism, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:09:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5682577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synph/pseuds/Mix%20Stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim is seventeen the first time that he sees a man die in front of him. </p><p>He's not even two days older when he meets his new bodyguard, Jason Todd and his world starts to change rapidly and in ways that he never could have foreseen. Tim wants to save the world, but will he even survive to his next birthday?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Contains: fast-paced relationship, flirtation, unspecified disordered eating/eating issues, modern feudalism, underage character, age difference (Jason is 20/21 to Tim's almost-18), oral sex, making out, kissing, clandestine relationship, bodyguards, minor character death, onscreen violence, canon typical violence, politics, references to: systematic antiblack racism, Jason's "death" at the hands of the Joker, weird politics.
> 
> Beta Credit: fleetsparrow (who really went above and beyond for this and deserves much love for putting up with me)
> 
> Notes: This is a commission for the darling stevebottoms who still gives me all the JayTim feels! I hope you like it, bb!
> 
> This story and the idea of Houses/Houseless in the DCU is inspired by the lovely meyari's story "Light and Dark". The history, culture, and themes in my AU are different from those in hers as mine is definitely closer to an organized crime family & feudal system set in the comics' universe, but the inspiration is obvious and it is there. I also owe a bit of inspiration to the A&E television series Into The Badlands for helping me move away from my original idea of having the story revolve exclusively around Gotham City's major families.

Tim is seventeen the first time that he sees a man die in front of him.

The man, one of his mother's informants that moved amongst the Houses of Gotham's great families as a temporary Houseless worker with a permit, had been charged with spying _on_ the Drake House as well as _for_ it. To Tim's mother, that kind of betrayal earns only one response: a very personal and somewhat private execution.

"Do you have to do this?" Tim asks his mother as she stalks through the weapons locker in the subbasement of their House, fingers skating over the tops of the bullet-proof glass cases that hold her favorite tools. Tim frowns, wincing when his mother's fingertips linger over a jagged-edged athame that had been a gift from Jason Blood.

Janet doesn't bother to hide her annoyance.

"We have a reputation to maintain," Janet says, her voice cool. She unlocks the case with one of the many keys on her keyring and then pulls the athame out along with a case of needles. "We are not as popular a House as Wayne House and we simply don't have the resources of the gangs. What we have is our will and what we are – what we have to be – is ruthless." Janet slips the athame into a sheath at her right hip opposite the holster where she's kept a loaded 9-millimeter from as far back as Tim can remember.

The needles, in their see-through box, Janet presses into Tim's hands.

"What is our House's motto, Tim?" Janet says as she looks down at Tim with narrowed features that look so much like Tim's own and a coolly measuring look in her dark brown eyes.

Tim forces himself to hold his mother's gaze. His fingers tighten around the case in his hands until the edges start to dig into his skin.

"We strike first," Tim says with no hesitation in his voice once he starts speaking. He knows the House motto by heart, the words practically imprinted on his brain. "We strike deep."

Janet's lips curve up in a crimson smile that manages to make Tim feel warm as well as faintly frightened. Reaching out, she cards her fingers through Tim's short black hair, stroking his head the way that she used to when Tim was small and the order of these Houses was far simpler.

"Tim, you're going to make our House strong when you're older," Janet says, her eyes bright with anticipation. "I'm going to let you sit in on the session today." Janet looks Tim over with something like appraisal settling on her face. Whatever she's looking for, she must find it, because she smiles again. Bright and not so much happy as _satisfied_.

"But –" Tim falters, his tongue feeling too-thick in his head.

He's only seventeen, Tim wants to say. He barely knows how to shave. He doesn't know how to drive. He hasn't even actually had romantic or sexual relationships with anyone aside from a few clandestine clenches with friends that he doesn't see as much as he'd like. Tim is too young to drink or to vote in Gotham City's House-only elections and he's certainly too young to watch a man die in front of him.

Or worse, to help him on his way.

Tim swallows, the gulping noise almost painfully loud to his own ears. He doesn't shake his head or frown, but something about his mother's gaze sharpens like a laser.

"Is there a problem, Tim?" Janet asks.

Tim is quick to shake his head.

"N-no," Tim says in the very next moment. "I'm fine. I'm just –" Tim falters, unsure of what word he can use next. If he says that he's excited, his mother might just make him handle the proceedings. If he says that he's thinking, she'll want to know what he's focused on. "I'm just wondering what we'll find out. I knew that the other Houses had spies, but I didn't know any of them would use those spies on _us_."

Despite Janet's business savvy and their House's reputation as one of the most ruthless, Drake House is still one of the smallest in the city with the least amount of territory and dependents. They manage to stay afloat due to their connections with stronger Houses in Metropolis, the under-the-table sales of weapons to gangs and other Houses, and Janet's determination to see her House survive into the future, but they are a far way from being anywhere near as notorious as Elliot House or as popular as Wayne House.

Janet shakes her head, frowning.

"They're after something," Janet says, speaking more to herself than to Tim. "I just have to make him tell me what he was paid to do." She glances at Tim. "After you try, of course."

Tim balks. " _Me_?"

"You've handled interrogations before," Janet says. "You should be able to handle this one."

Tim stares at his mother as if he's not sure if he's awake. "Those were different," Tim says, louder than he intends to. "It was little things like finding out about someone stealing or taking too many rations. This is -- this is _big_."

"I know," Janet says as if that settles things (and for her, it probably does). "That's why _you're_ going to do it. You're going to lead this House one day and you need to start taking charge of more things."

"So you want me to interrogate a man and then _kill_ him," Tim repeats, feeling his face scrunch up with a frown. "Mother, I'm –"

Janet's laughter slices through the air. "You thought I would make you _kill_ someone, Tim?"

Tim… doesn't nod. He wants to, desperately, but something tells him that it would be foolish. He settles for a half-hearted shrug. "Maybe?" He regrets the words the very second that they fall from his lips, but his mother doesn't give him a chance to apologize or explain.

"Let's go. I don't have time for this," Janet says with that faint tinge of annoyance returning to her voice. She turns neatly on her heel and then stalks off without so much as an over the shoulder glance to make sure that Tim is following her.

Tim takes a moment – both to mourn the loss of warmth in his mother's voice at his slip and to let her reach the elevator and the guards – and then scurries after her, the soles of his sneakers squeaking across the tile.

~

Up close, Tim's mother's spy doesn't look like much.

Marcus Caine is thin and wiry, underfed in the way that much of the Houseless are. Due to his living conditions, the disease ravaging his body, and the bruising that purples his face, Tim can't quite tell how old he is. Tim settles for taking notes down in his smartphone, scrawling out the shorthand across the sleek surface before he tucks it away in his pocket.

"Are you ready to talk, Marcus?" Tim asks, his voice filled with far more confidence than he actually feels. "Spying on the House that hired you in the first place is a very serious offense. I know that my House paid you well for your job and gave your daughter an apartment in our territory, so why did you decide to turn on us?"

Tim is legitimately curious.

What makes someone turn on their House? What makes a man like Marcus, with an illness to take care of and a daughter under a House's care, decide to betray a House like the Drakes?

Tim feels his mouth twist with a frown when Marcus simply sits there and stares at him with a sullen glare on his face. He can feel the weight of his mother's stare as he walks in circles around the man bound tightly to a sturdy wooden chair with straps of thick leather and he knows without looking that she's marking this down as a failure in his mind.

"Who hired you to spy on us?" Tim asks, daring to walk closer.

Marcus sneers. "You'd like to know that, eh?"

"Was it Cobblepot House? Or Elliot's?" Tim pauses, mind racing. "No. They already have their spies in place and we know who they are. What could someone have to gain by making someone like you work as a double agent?"

Tim is so busy, so caught up in thinking that he doesn't hear the ominous creak of leather until it's too late. Marcus snaps one restraint and then the other, body flexing with a strength that shouldn't be present in such a skinny body. He makes short work of the leg restraints while Tim just stands there, mind and body held fast underneath the fear of the unknown.

"What – how –"

Marcus grins down at Tim. "I'm going to kill you," Marcus says, tone as light as if he's discussing the weather. He reaches out and grips Tim's shoulder hard enough that pain immediately spirals out from the joint. "Now should I kill you first, or your mother? He paid me to kill both of you, but he didn't say how I had to do it."

Tim gasps, struggling to take in air.

"Who – who paid you?" Tim finally gets out.

Marcus shakes him. "Like I'll tell you that, kid."

In the chaos, Tim hears the sound of the safety on his mother's favorite gun sliding off. He relaxes as best has he can and tries not to think about how close things are. If her aim is off or if he moves, Tim is dead and Drake House with him.

"Put my son down," Janet says. Cool and collected, it would take someone that knows Janet to notice the fine tremor in her hands and the way that she looks at Marcus with hatred gleaming in her eyes. "Put him down or I'll have your daughter killed."

Marcus snorts out a burst of laughter against the back of Tim's head. "You wouldn't dare."

Janet reaches down for the comm unit pinned to her collar. "Azrael, do you have your sights on Rebecca Caine?"

The speakers in the room crackle before his mother's personal guard comes on the line.

"Yes, ma'am," Azrael says. "I'm ready when you are."

"Now do you believe me," Janet murmurs. "Now let Tim go."

Marcus shakes his head and then shakes Tim. "You _wouldn't_ —"

"Shoot her," Janet says in a cold as frigid as the temperature outside.

The high whine of Azrael's gun comes across clearly in the quiet room. Silence stretches and then –

"It's done," Azrael murmurs.

Tim only gets a moment to stare at his mother, features twisted with horror and disbelief, before Marcus flies into action. The man lunges at Janet and then, before he can even make it a foot away from Tim, her gun barks out two neat slugs. Blood and something thicker spray out across Tim's face and instinctively, he closes his eyes and takes a quick step backward.

Seconds later, Tim hears the uncomfortably meaty thud of Marcus' body hitting the ground and he _knows_. Tim _knows_.

"Is he –" Tim can't finish his question, but Janet knows what he'd meant to ask.

"He's dead," Janet says from much closer than Tim had expected.

Tim tries to frown, but then fails. "And his daughter?"

"She's fine. Azrael had orders only to shoot out one of her windows," Janet says, just moments before a daubing at Tim's face with something that feels faintly scratchy. "She was just the distraction I needed in case things went south."

Tim's teeth won't stop chattering. He feels _cold_ , freezing despite the temperature inside. Even when Janet finishes wiping off his face and forehead, Tim doesn't dare to open his eyes. He doesn't want to see his mother's handiwork or evidence of it. Not now while he's still only moments away from having a breakdown.

"You – you killed a man," Tim says to his mother as bile rises, thick and acrid in the back of Tim's throat. He thinks about throwing up all over the expensive Quaraci carpet and then, after thinking about it, decides against it. "And I was covered in his _brains_ –"

Janet sighs.

"I killed someone that was trying to kill you," she says almost patiently. " _You_ are the future. I need you to survive." Her fingers hook in the bend of Tim's arm and when she moves away, Tim has to follow her or risk stumbling. "When you get to your room, I want you to shower and put on one of your suits. We'll meet with your father in the labs and discuss how to proceed in the face of such an obvious attack on our House. Someone is trying to destroy us and we need to snuff them out."

Tim shudders at the thought of helping his mother hunt down Marcus Caine's other boss.

"Can't I just stay in my room?" Tim asks as they walk down the hallway towards his room, managing to barely move his lips as he talks. Despite his mother's attempts at cleaning his face, Tim still feels as if he has to still be covered in blood and brain matter. "You don't need me for that, do you?"

Silence rings in his ears and Tim doesn't need to open his eyes to know that his mother is looking at him with disapproval on her face. The thought makes Tim even more nauseous. Tim sways, head reeling as his stomach seems to bubble.

The door to Tim's suite of rooms slides open with a soft whisper of air and then Janet manhandles Tim, helping him across the carpet to the bathroom door and then nudging him inside.

"Go clean up," Janet says. "I expect to see you in an hour. One of the House guards will come for you when it's time."

Before the door to Tim's suite has time to close properly behind his mother, Tim is on his knees in front of the toilet, vomiting. He heaves until there's nothing more to come out except for bile. Tim's eyes burn with unshed tears and his breath rushes from him with panting gasps as he clutches at the toilet with tensely white-knuckled fingers.

"I could have _died_ ," Tim breathes, his eyes widening as he realizes how close he'd come to being killed. It comes to him in flashes –

Marcus's viselike grip on his shoulder. The strength in his hands that he shouldn't have possessed with him nearly dead from illness. And the threat – the _promise_ of death in his voice. When Tim closes his eyes he can feel it, the too-hot splash of blood across his face and the way that thicker things had splattered across his forehead.

Tim shudders, hunching over the toilet just in time to spew another sickly trickle of bile into the bowl. He doesn't know how long he sits there, shaking and trying not to cry because he _knows_ that his mother has access to cameras in every single room of the House. He knows that she loves him in her own way, but he doesn't want to fail her. To look weak.

Eventually, Tim flushes the toilet and then manages to stand up.

Neatly avoiding the mirrors in front of the sink and behind the bathroom door, Tim undresses.

Instead of putting his clothes in the hamper, Tim dumps them in the garbage, trying to tell himself that the stains on the fabric come from something else. Somewhere else.

The shower, like much of the tech in Drake House, is voice controlled. When Tim steps inside the glass-walled enclosure, he takes a second to breathe.

"Temperature eighty-nine degrees," Tim says. It's hotter than his usual shower, though not quite scalding. Tim needs the heat though. He needs to feel the heat of the water against his skin, washing away the blood and –

Tim's stomach clenches again at the memory. He forces it back, willing himself not to throw up again.

"Increase temperature by ten degrees," Tim orders.

The water in the shower feels like heated pinpricks on his skin, but he needs it. Tim closes his eyes and steps more fully into the spray, his face upturned as he reaches blindly for a washcloth and his bar of soap. Scrubbing comes easily to Tim, even _with_ his eyes shut tightly and his fingers shaking with every pass of the cloth over his face.

Tim winds up taking about three showers, scrubbing at his skin until it's faintly red and sensitive to the touch. His face stings when he touches it and he knows that he'll be avoiding mirrors for the rest of the night. Taking that many showers and scrubbing so hard might not have been the best idea, but Tim needed to feel clean again. He'll deal with everything else later.

Tim doesn't bother with a towel, stepping straight into the air-dry unit next to the shower and letting that take care of him. The unit leaves his skin feeling a bit tight and his hair stands straight up, but at least –at _last_ – Tim is clean.

The intercom unit set in a sleep panel next to the door crackles on.

"Are you presentable?" Tim recognizes Azrael's voice immediately and he relaxes. Out of all of the House guards, Azrael is the most loyal. Certainly, he's unpredictable in a way, but he truly cares for the future of their House. "Your mother sent me to fetch you."

Tim shakes his head and then remembers that he has video functions turned off in the bathroom for the obvious reason. "I'll be out soon. Don't come in."

~

Jack Drake isn't the most… affectionate of men.

Tim can count on one hand the amount of times that his father has hugged him. So when his father gathers him up into a hug that squeezes the breath out of his chest, Tim doesn't know what to do with himself. He settles for patting his father's back with awkward thumps of his hand.

"I'm okay, Dad," Tim says. He has to repeat himself a few times before he can continue, but eventually, he manages to move on. "He didn't hurt me."

Jack shudders, hugging Tim tightly before pulling back. "I know," he says against the top of Tim's head. "Your mother told me what she had to do."

At the memory, Tim's head swims and he has to pull back from his father's too-tight hug. He doesn't look too long at where his mother sits at the head of a table with papers and computers spread out in front of her and Azrael at her right side.

"What are we looking at now?" Tim asks. It's a desperate bid to change the subject but thankfully, Janet either doesn't notice or doesn't care. "Did you find out who paid Marcus to betray us?"

Janet shakes her head. "No," she hisses, anger intense in her voice. "Nothing. I'm starting to suspect that there is more than a single traitor in our House. Your father found echoes in the network that didn't belong, but no sign of their origin."

Tim frowns. "Echoes?"

His father steps forward, a similar frown on his face. "We're going to need to find the echoes and reboot the system," he says as he turns to Tim. "Can you take a day off from college to work with me in the labs?"

Of course Tim can. He'd do anything to protect his House, even miss classes. Besides, it's not like he doesn't know everything that they're teaching him in the business and computer classes at his college.

"Sure," Tim says with an easy nod of his head. "Just let me know what you need from me." He manages a smile for his father and then turns to look at his mother. "What about you, mother?"

Janet glances up at from the tablet computer in front of her. At first, she blinks blankly at Tim as if she doesn't register his voice, but then her gaze sharpens.

"We'll need to get a guard for you, Tim," she says. "If something happens to you, our House will be left without a future." She frowns. "Jason Todd, a former member of Wayne House, is looking for work out in the West District and he's agreed to come and speak to us tomorrow."

"You've already picked my guard out?" Tim doesn't mean to bite the words out the way that he does, but he can't help it. "What do we even know about him?"

Janet's lips curve up with a satisfied smile. She looks up at Tim as if she's proud of him for asking the question and then taps her nails across the tablet on her left until Tim comes forward and takes it from her.

"I had a dossier done on him," Janet says. "I also have profiles on three other potential bodyguards for you to choose from. This is entirely _your_ decision, Tim, so choose wisely." Her smile softens and she reaches out to snag the edge of Tim's sleeve. "And choose quickly: I don't feel comfortable leaving you without a guard of your own for too long. Remember, we have Mayor Dent's birthday party in two days and members of every House in Gotham will be there. You need to choose someone before then."

Tim nods his head quickly. "I know," he says, voice a low murmur. "I will." Tim takes the tablet to one the tables of the far side of the lab. He boots up the device and then stares at the dossiers on the desktop.

At the start, he can see why his mother wants Jason Todd to stand in for his guard. The man – though Jason is only a few years older than he is – has a history of good work and seems unafraid to get his hands dirty. Prior to working on contract as a mercenary and as muscle for hire, he'd been a staple in Wayne House and the politics of the city.

Tim remembers that actually, mind offering up half-hazy memories of a grinning kid in a suit that had thumped him on the back in a friendly way during his House's anniversary day. His memories of Jason are scattered. Most of the Houses have one or two scions, but Wayne House was – and still _is_ – notable for the number of children that can claim the title.

Jason was Richard's successor after the older Wayne scion took off for Houseless New York. An orphan pulled out of the No Man's Land of Park Row and raised in the lap of luxury until he was almost the same age that Tim is now.

And then –

He was gone. Houseless.

The dossier doesn't have much information on what caused the split, only suspicions that stretch from one sentence to another. Jason's Houseless status neatly coincides with the conspicuous absence of the Joker, one of Gotham City's most aggressive gang-leader and a bane in every House's hide, from Houseless society.

Missing for the past four years, the Joker's gang of killer clowns has mostly atrophied despite the efforts of the man's floundering second-in-command.

Jason, Tim suspects as he reads through the notes in the dossier on this section, might have had something to do with this. Tim suspects an awful lot, but he can't confirm anything.

Tim doesn't have enough pieces to put the puzzle together, but the image forming in Tim's mind is interesting enough that he sighs, staring down at the grainy photograph of Jason heading up the dossier as if expecting it to tell him something that he doesn't know. The few videos of Jason included in the dossier show the man in action and on Selina Kyle's dime, body moving and twisting as he dodges attacks and easily puts down assailants.

Despite the poor quality of the photo, Tim can see that Jason is incredibly good-looking with sharp features and a twist to his wide mouth that could barely be called a smirk. There are other photos of course, but those are older. Not as appealing.

Jason's appeal shouldn't be a significant factor in Tim's choices.

But Tim is seventeen, months away from his majority, and he's only kissed two people. He's entitled to a little fantasizing and the wild desire to make a decision based on how attracted he is to someone. Tim catches himself tracing Jason's features, moving the tip of his right index finger across the tablet in lazy circles, and jerks his hand back, sending the tablet clattering to the table top.

"Is everything alright?" Janet calls out from across the lab.

Tim feels his face warm with a flush. "Yes, it's fine. I just – I thought I saw a bug." It's a terrible excuse and Tim knows it, but he doesn't flinch as his mother fixes him with a steely, _searching_ look. "And I think you're right about Jason Todd. I'd like to talk to him about some things in the dossier, but he looks like a good fit for me."

"Mhm," Janet says with a knowing look on her face.

The blush deepens until Tim feels hot all the way up to his eyebrows.

"He's a good fighter," Tim says, feeling defensive as his mother's own eyebrows arches up. "And he has experience with the city's House structure and politics. He'll be able to defend me from threats that I might not even recognize at first." Tim gestures at the tablet. "I'll admit that I'm curious too about the gaps in his history and the time spent with the scion to the Quaraci Royal House, but he seems like someone that would be able to protect me."

Janet sets down her own tablet and then smiles. It's wider than usual and truly warm.

"Excellent," she says. "I'll send a runner to let him know that he'll be expected for breakfast tomorrow."

Tim blinks. "Breakfast?"

"We want him sooner, rather than later, Tim," Janet explains. "It can be… difficult to get used to the loss of freedom that a guard entails."


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Tim is up before the sun.

After the night before, Tim's dreams had been plagued with nightmares. He'd dreamt of his mother missing or Marcus killing them both.

By the time that Tim bolts up from his bedroom and slaps his hand over his eyes to block out the thin stream of light from his half-closed curtains, he's already a mess. With so much already gone wrong, Tim might as well get up and get started on what his father needs from him.

After another, shorter shower, Tim wanders down to the lab where his father and his many assistants tend to congregate at all hours of the day. Honestly, Tim can't remember a time where he'd walked down to the labs and found them empty. Even in the case of true emergencies, someone always stays behind to keep the facilities safe and secure.

His father's favorite assistant, a tall woman with silver streaking her curly black hair and the faintest of wrinkles on her brown skin, greets Tim at his workstation with a smile and a silver carafe of coffee that's still hot to the touch.

"Am I that predictable, Tamara?" Tim asks. He stops very short of actually whining.

Tamara laughs, shaking her head.

"Not at all, Tim," she says, the warmth in her voice truly comforting. "One of the maids saw you leaving the elevator and rushed down to tell us. That's all." She turns to head back to her own workstation and then pauses, glancing at Tim over her shoulder. "But your mother _did_ tell me to let you know that breakfast is in three hours and that you need to be somewhat presentable by then."

Unlike the staff that runs the House, Janet isn't opposed to spying on Tim via the House's network of security cameras. Some days, Tim wishes that his mother had a bit more understanding of privacy and what Tim needs as a young adult.

And by some days, Tim means every day.

Tim smiles instead of sighing because it isn't Tamara's fault that his mother wants to micromanage his life on most days.

"I know," Tim says with a faint sighing note to his voice. "I have an alarm set for forty-five minutes before we're supposed to eat and my clothes are already laid out for the meal. She needs to remember that she _can_ just message me instead of bothering you all down here."

Tamara's smile widens. "But where would the fun be in that?"

~

Tim nearly misses his alarm.

It's not his fault that the task of finding the source of the seemingly infinite echoes and other security errors in the House's computer network is so interesting. At first, Tim is so busy trying to figure out why one of the cameras in the kitchens is aimed at a supply closet that he doesn't hear the chirping alarm on his tablet.

It takes him several minutes to realize that he's still got breakfast ahead of him and then Tim bolts up from his workstation. Saving the progress on his work takes only a matter of moments and Tim does so almost absently before scooping up his tablet and heading in the direction of the main laboratory's double doors.

"Have a good breakfast," Tamara calls as Tim rushes past her.

Tim barely manages to wave before he heads back to his room. Dressing after taking _another_ shower eats up more of Tim's time than he expects. By the time that he makes it down to the private dining room that his parents use for breakfast meetings, he's already several minutes late.

Wonderful.

When Tim rushes into the small room, he's all ready to blurt out an endless amount of apologies. However, the words seem to dry up on his tongue when he realizes that his mother isn't alone in the room.

A man that can only be Jason Todd is seated at Janet's left hand side at the table. Tim's first glimpse of Jason leaves him speechless thanks to the ruggedness of the man's motorcycle leathers and the way that his hair – shaved at the sides and loose at the top – falls in front of a piercing blue gaze.

Despite the smug smile on Jason's face and the faintly disapproving scowl on Janet's Tim can't stop staring at Jason. He even feels his eyes widen as Jason pushes his chair back and gets to his feet, easily towering over Janet and Tim both.

"You – you're –" The words just won't come no matter how Tim tries to speak. He feels like he's twelve again and standing in front of the Luthor scion with every single adult in the area staring at them in hopes of figuring out if he and Conner were about to be friends or worse, future significant others. The only difference is that Tim wasn't in awe of Conner and he certainly didn't want anything more from the other scion than friendship.

With Jason, things are immediately and unavoidably different.

And of course Jason notices.

Crossing the room with long ground-eating strides, it takes no time at all for Jason to come to a stop in front of Tim. Up close, Jason is even taller. More attractive. He can't be that much older than Tim, but he's tall and muscular enough that he looks as if _he_ should be in charge of a House of his own. The way that he stands, the way that he smiles –

Everything about him smacks of so much confidence that if Tim wasn't still trying to figure out how to get his mouth to start working again, he'd probably be jealous. As it stands, Tim keeps trying to talk, but Jason's mere presence seems to short out his brain.

"You're –"

"Jason. Jason Todd," Jason responds, holding out his right hand for Tim to shake. Despite the leather glove denying Tim the chance to feel skin on skin, that single touch alone is electric.

Tim doesn't want to let go.

"I'm Tim," he says, managing a smile that hopefully doesn't look too awkward on his face. "It's… nice to meet you." Tim ducks his head, feeling flushed and somewhat faint when Jason's smirk widens to a smile in response to his words.

Jason's fingers flex against Tim's own and then he pulls back, nice and calm as if nothing at all has happened between them in the past few moments.

"It's nice to meet you too," Jason says with a lingering look up and down Tim's body. "Honestly, if I'd known that _you_ were the Drake scion, I've gotten here a lot sooner."

The compliment isn't subtle.

Neither is the way that he looks at Tim as if he wants to lick him.

It's also not the sort of thing that Tim is used to hearing from anyone talking to him in front of his mother or well – at all. As the scion to Drake House, Tim's had his fair share of flirtations. Most of them didn't last longer than the dessert course at whatever dinner they were at in the city. There's something about the fact that Tim is an unrepentant computer nerd that renders him a less than stellar catch in the city.

"Excuse me?" Tim and his mother say at almost the exact same time.

The only difference is in _how_ they say it.

Janet's voice holds a mix of anger and exasperation that Tim finds to be incredibly familiar. It's the same voice that she uses for Conner on the few occasions that they're allowed to spend time together outside of Metropolis. Tim on the other hand, squeaks the question out as a blush bursts into existence across his face.

If he's not redder than the poinsettias that his mother keeps on the table as a decoration, he doesn't want to know what color his face is.

Jason shrugs, seemingly unaffected by either of the Drakes' response to him.

"I call it like I see it," Jason says with a roguish smile settling on his face as his accent grows even more pronounced. "You're a good looking guy and what can I say: I've been known to have a thing for the smart ones."

If Tim's face gets any hotter, he's likely to wind up bursting into flames. His mouth opens and shuts without any sound more stable than a soft squeak slipping free. Great. Just great.

Thankfully, Janet steps in to cover Tim's slack.

"Is this any way to talk to a potential employer?" Janet asks, her voice sharp as it rings throughout the small dining room.

Tim winces.

So does Jason.

"Mother…"

"I know that you're not used to this –"

" _Mother_ ," Tim says again, a little louder than before. Aggravation seeps into his voice. "It's fine. I don't mind. In fact, it's nice to hear someone say nice things about my looks every once in a while." There's bitterness in Tim's voice that neither he nor his mother are likely to address any time soon. "If Jason is going to be _my_ bodyguard, then maybe _I_ should handle the interview?"

Janet freezes, her lipsticked mouth forming a crimson O-shape. "Are you – are you sure?"

Tim shrugs. "The worst that can happen," he says as he glances at where Jason isn't even bothering to pretend that he's not enjoying himself and his role in their little tiff, "Is that I like Jason a little bit too much and when have you ever known me to put pleasure over business? Or food?"

That seems to appease some of Janet's frustration. She frowns but then nods, standing up in a smooth movement. She doesn't seem to want to look at either of them for very long, but eventually, she manages to nod at Tim.

"Two hours," she says. "Either make a decision by then or pick out a different candidate. I need you to be protected at all times after today and I'd like it if I didn't have to loan you one of the regular House guards in the process."

Of course, Tim understands his mother's reasoning. If the House's guards aren't at the House, then they can't guard it. Of course, that means that Tim needs to decide _something_ about Jason Todd that isn't connected to how much he wants to kiss the other man.

Sometime between Janet's departure and Tim fussing with himself mentally, Jason's made his way back over to the dining room table and has started laying out food. It's unsurprising really, that a man with Jason's strength and body type would eat as much as he does.

What's actually surprising is the way that Tim actually finds himself looking forward to the chance to sit and take a meal with Jason. Even if he's a little… thrown by Jason's candor and his claims to find Tim attractive, Tim can't say that he's unlikely to enjoy the other man's company. He can't even say that he's not still considering hiring Jason on as his bodyguard.

After all, Tim doesn't _want_ another Azrael.

He wants a guard that he can talk to. Someone that counts as his friend and not merely someone who is prepared to live, die, and _kill_ by his words.

Jason, Tim thinks to himself as he moves to take the seat opposite the man in question, has the potential to be so much more.

"So," Jason says after watching Tim make the sparsest plate of food that he can put together and then fill an over-sized mug with coffee and enough fresh cream to make the dark liquid take on a pale coloring. "What's a guy like you doing looking for a bodyguard like me? Drake House isn't one of the big ones and last I heard, your House didn't have that many enemies."

Tim frowns over his cup of coffee, trying to figure out how much of the previous night's events he can tell Jason before officially hiring him on.

"There was an incident last night," Tim says eventually, speaking carefully. "While no one was hurt aside from the assailant, my mother and I both felt that things came a little too close for our mutual comfort. I don't have guards of my own due to a recent shortage of hired help, but we felt as if the incident was too worrying to ignore."

Jason smirks again.

"So you decided to go bodyguard shopping and somehow wound up picking me," Jason says with a sarcastic drawl underlying his words. He leans forward in the next second, elbows resting on the top of the dining room table as he gives Tim a knowing look that makes him blush even harder. "Say, this wouldn't have anything to do with how you were downright _obsessed_ with Wayne House back when you were a kid, would it? I remember how you used to follow me an' Dick around whenever our families interacted."

Tim is beginning to feel as if he'll never be able to stop blushing while in Jason's presence.

He shakes his head in the face of Jason's clear amusement.

"It's not like that," Tim insists. "It's _not_."

Jason snorts out a quiet burst of laughter that makes Tim feel like getting up from the table. "Sure, sure," he says. "So what – you had a near death experience and you're worried that something worse'll happen next time? I can handle that."

Tim shakes his head. "It's not that," he says, his voice rising higher and higher with every word until he's all but _shouting_ at Jason. "All signs point to a traitor on the inside. Someone we've hired on in our House is looking for our weaknesses and a way to end us from within and we don't even know who they're working for."

"I get it," Jason says, his voice gentle for a change. "Bru – Back when I was part of Wayne House, we had a thing like that with Thomas Elliot. He was one of Wayne's blind spots back in the day and when he came looking for help, there was no way the old man was going to turn him down. Turns out that Elliot was planning to speed up the chain of inheritance by using one of his pet assassins to kill half of us kids off."

Jason's smile is brittle and doesn't reach his eyes.

"So yeah," he murmurs. "I understand that kind of betrayal. And I really don't like it."

There's probably more to the story than Jason is willing to share right now.

A lot more.

Tim can read a bit more into the way that Jason holds himself, eating slowly and neatly despite the fact that he looks ready to dive face first into his plate. He's tense in his shoulders and in the lines of his strong jaw and when he looks at Tim every so often, there's a distance in his voice.

"You keep staring at me like that, Tim, and I'm going to develop a complex," Jason teases.

Tim can't stop himself from flushing and he stares down at his plate.

A second later, he feels a light touch to his shoulder. When he looks up, Jason's smile is a little softer and more genuine.

"Hey," Jason says, speaking so lowly that Tim has to lean over in order to hear him. "I didn't say you should stop."

~

It would be impossible for Tim to decide on a different bodyguard.

There's something about Jason that calls to him. If Tim believed in reincarnation, he'd be hard-pressed to assume that he and Jason _hadn't_ known each other in another lifetime. Jason just _gets_ Tim. He walks beside Tim on their way back to Tim's bedroom, stride just long enough that he can move in front of Tim should anyone leap out of the shadows and attack. He seems to see everything as well, exchanging nods with some of the guards that call the House their home.

"Why _did_ you pick me in the first place?" Jason asks once they're paused at the door to Tim's suite of rooms. He waits patiently for Tim to unlock the door with his passcode and palm print and then sweeps inside, checking the main room quickly for any hidden surprises. When he comes back to Tim's side, he pauses, eyebrows raised expectantly.

Tim bites at his lip.

"I didn't –" The words stick in his throat. The lies, that is. What Tim wants to say and what is the actual truth vary at times and this is one of them. Tim sighs instead, combing a hand through his carefully styled hair until it's just as big a mess as usual, and then heads in the direction of one of the couches in the living room.

He feels rather than sees Jason following at his heels.

"My mother had a dossier put together for you," Tim confesses as if it's a shameful secret instead of something that most heads of Houses do when considering hiring any new blood. "There was a clip of you fighting in the Narrows on behalf of Selina's crew and it was –" Tim licks his lips to moisten them. "It was amazing. Watching you fight was unbelievable and you were so graceful!"

Jason drops down into the chair cattycorner Tim's own couch.

"Seriously," he says with a wide smile on his face. "If you keep complimenting me like that, I might just take this job for free." He leans back, making himself nice and comfortable while also not looking away from Tim's face. "And I can teach you how to fight if you want. It's really not that difficult."

Tim's nose wrinkles with a faint frown. "Are you sure?"

Jason shrugs those distractingly broad shoulders.

"Gimme a week or two to learn your schedule and for the two of us to get used to each other and I'll have you whipped into shape in no time," Jason says, almost lecturing as Tim stares at him. "Having a guard is good, but it never hurts to be able to take care of yourself in the process."

"You're the expert here," Tim says. Like this, it's easy enough to give in. He tilts his head back along the side of the couch until he can just barely see the doors for the other rooms in his suite. "Which reminds me… where are you going to sleep?"

Somehow, Tim knows without looking that Jason is giving him a _look_.

"In your room, of course," Jason says. "Where else would I sleep?"

Tim flushes. "But – but –" Tim's room isn't _that_ big. Sure, he's got a suite almost as large as the one that his parents have shared since their marriage, but his actual room isn't big enough for him, Jason, _and_ Jason's personality.

"I'm just kidding, kid," Jason says, with a faint smile on his face. "We'll work something out that doesn't get you putting up with my snoring."

Tim feels his face warm with a flush that he hopes isn't something that Jason can see in the perpetually dim light of his room. He shakes his head after a moment, managing a smile for his new guard.

"I don't mind snoring," Tim offers hesitantly. "And I'm not in _that_ much trouble that you'd have to sleep in the room with me all the time. There's a room that connects to mine through a hidden panel and you can always sleep there."

Honestly, Tim doesn't know how his parents do it. He knows that his father has a guard when he leaves the House and that Azrael is only far from his mother's side when she's armed and decidedly dangerous, but that doesn't explain how they handle the night shifts. Of course, Tim supposes that the House guards can take care of things well enough without having to breach Tim's privacy, but then --

The point of having Jason around, Tim reasons as he watches the older man fiddle with a cigarette lighter that he pulls from one of his pockets, is to have a guard that's closer than the others in the House. Even if Jason doesn't spend the night _in_ Tim's room, he's going to have to be close.

Excruciatingly close.

Tim sighs a little and then shifts in his seat, glancing at Jason from underneath his eyelashes. After several long seconds, Tim finally settles on something to say to Jason.

"I know that Mother will most likely have Azrael take you on a tour of the House and get you up to date on everyone's dossiers, but do you want a small tour from now?" Tim asks.

He regrets the words as soon as they escape his mouth.

The idea of being alone with Jason, of showing him all of the House's secret passages and hidden rooms with no one around to see what they get up to, makes Tim feel heat burn in his cheeks and in his chest. He's seventeen and he's _long_ been overdue for the chance to interact with someone that he isn't related to or that his mother didn't handpick for him. Technically, Jason doesn't count on that note because of how he _is_ supposed to be Tim's guard. Tim knows that. He does. But that doesn't stop him from feeling a mad little thrill of want when he glances at Jason and sees a small but seemingly genuine smile on his face.

"Don't we have to talk to your mom?" Jason asks. "Or sign some paperwork?"

Tim waves away the other man's concerns easily enough.

"It's a formality but honestly, I'd say that you're hired even without it," Tim says in what he hopes comes across as a casual tone. "You don't need paperwork to be my guard -- I suspect Mother's been paying Azrael off the books since his second year here -- and it's not like the House isn't covered in cameras. Only a few of the rooms and hallways don't have them and those are _very_ difficult to get to."

One of Jason's thick black eyebrows arch up. "Hm?"

"Someone will know that I'm with you and where we are at all times," Tim says. "So if you're worried about someone thinking that you're taking advantage of me or that I'm looking to reenact one of those ridiculous romantic dramas where the client falls for their bodyguard, don't worry. It's fine."

Jason's smirk ratchets up a few levels.

"Thought a lot about that one, haven't you?"

Immediately, Tim entertains and then discards the idea of slapping Jason right across that smug face. He's not a fan of violence for one thing and for another, Jason isn't really wrong. A little bit annoying, but then, anyone that's able to read Tim like a book is someone that Tim is shockingly disarmed around.

"I've seen those movies," Tim mutters. "My friend --" He pauses, frowning at the memory of Stephanie who he hasn't seen in _months_ since her mother started moving around the city in order to sell her services to Houses without a med-staff of their own. "My friend Steph, she took me to see one on her last birthday. It was..." Tim trails off, feeling his mouth purse with a frown.

"I feel you there," Jason says with a smile and a stretch of his rangy body that makes Tim's face feel so hot. He looks Tim up and down though, gaze lingering at the gap in Tim's shirt that reveals his collarbones and the fit of his pants to his thighs. "But you've got to admit that there's something about that fantasy..."

If Tim keeps this blushing up, he'll probably pass out from all the blood in his body going everywhere _other_ than where it's supposed to go. Which would mean that he wouldn't have to look at Jason's ridiculously handsome face anymore but then, that's not the best impression to make on his new guard.

"You keep flirting with me," Tim says, just barely managing to keep a level tone to his voice. "Why?"

Jason shrugs his broad shoulders as if it doesn't bother him to be interrogated so fiercely. "Why not," Jason retorts. "You're cute and we're going to be spending most of our time together for the next few weeks. Why shouldn't I flirt with you?"

"Because I'm not going to flirt back?" Tim offers the suggestion in an aggrieved tone that does absolutely nothing to shake Jason's calm. "Who even says that you're my type?"

Jason's crooked nose wrinkles. " _Seriously_?"

Tim nods. "Yeah, seriously."

"Obviously, you can't see the way that you've been checking me out all day, kid," Jason points out. "If I had slightly less morals than I do, I'd have kissed you ages ago. You're cute and I've heard about the work you do for your House, but trust me, I wouldn't even be entertaining these thoughts if you weren't so damn tempting."

Tim feels his jaw drop just a little and he's quick to suck his bottom lip back into his mouth and bite at it.

Jason's eyes narrow and a hungry, searching look, settles across his face.

"You don't even know how you look right now, do you?" Jason doesn't wait for Tim to respond or even to sit up straighter on the couch. "I'll give you a break, kid. Obviously, I'm reading you wrong and you don't want me. No more flirting unless you ask me for it or give me an actual signal."

Tim blinks. "What --"

"I'm up for whatever," Jason says in a tone that makes Tim feel as if he's being _lectured_ , "but I need everyone to be on the same page as me. So until you are, I'm going to just be the best bodyguard I can be and keep your ass safe with no strings attached. Deal?"

"Y-yeah," Tim says, taken aback by both Jason's frankness and the nature of his confession. He reaches out to shake Jason's strong right hand and flushes even harder at the way that the other man's calluses scratch across his skin.

When Tim meets Jason's dark eyes, he's unsurprised to see nothing more than a vague heat simmering in the depths of that blue gaze. He's a little bit more surprised that he manages to hold Jason's gaze and even match it.

"Okay. We have a deal."

~

Drake House might be one of the smallest of Gotham City's great Houses, but that doesn't mean that it's small overall. Their House itself is so big that after ninety minutes of showing Jason around, they're still in the east wing. There are smaller Houses, the cobbled-together remains of older families that married into one another to keep their status, but they control only a block or two of land in the city itself.

Despite the fact that Drake House has been passed down from one only child to another for the past three generations, the House still has clout and it still has actual territory both in the surrounding countryside and the city itself.

If Tim's father were just a little less clever and his mother a little less ruthless –

No.

Tim doesn't want to think about what could have been. He shakes his head, forcing himself back into the here and now instead of events that can't possibly happen, turning to look at a statue that his mother had received as a gift from the Amazons back when he was a child.

"That's from Themyscira isn't it?" Jason's voice sounds close. Close enough that Tim can actually _feel_ the rush of his breath against his ear at any rate. When Tim doesn't move, Jason steps closer, thoroughly invading Tim's space. In a thoroughly platonic way of course. "There's one like this in Wayne House in the entryway. The Themysciran ambassador and my old man have this _thing_ going on. It's weird, but she commissioned a huge statue for him back when I was still living there." Jason grunts. "Yours is better though."

Tim can't quite muffle his laughter. He sidesteps Jason neatly, pretending that he's not tempted to lean back against the warmth of Jason's larger body, and then gestures at one of the few hallways that he hasn't dragged Jason down yet.

"Do you – do you want to see the passage that takes us down to the garage?" Tim asks, realizing as he talks that he's volunteering to spend time alone in a dark passage that no one else goes into unless they have an emergency or a drill. "We can check out the cars while we're down there and pick out a car that'll just be for us and our driver."

Jason blinks at him, visibly nonplussed. "Sure, I mean… It's up to you." He glances along the hallway that is noticeably bereft of House guards. "Just stay close. You know… Just in case."

At that, Tim can't help but smile at Jason over his shoulder as he leads the way towards the passageway and the hidden panel for its release. "It's a passageway that only maybe four people know about in this entire House – well, five if we count you. I think we'll be fine."

If Tim sounds overconfident in the wake of his near death experience the night before, it's because he is. Out of all of the two dozen individual secret rooms and passageways in the main building of Drake House, security only knows about eight of them.

The others are Tim's finds. Only his father _might_ know more about the House than he does and so far, their paths haven't crossed in these rooms and passages.

"This passageway is one that people know about but never use," Tim says, tilting his head to the side as he bites at his bottom lip. "When I was six or seven, I spread a rumor that someone died in the passageway and that their ghost haunted the place ever since."

Jason's answering smile is sharper, amused. "Ghost stories? _Really_?"

Tim shrugs. "It worked didn't it?"

Once Tim wriggles his fingers underneath the frame of a haphazard Dadaist work of nonsense, it only takes him a matter of moments to find the pressure switch for the hidden panel. The wall in front of them shudders and then slides open with a quiet grumbling sound that makes Tim _and_ Jason glance around the thankfully empty hallway before looking back at the mouth of the passageway yawning black and open before them.

"You can go first if you want," Tim offers, grinning when Jason turns to glare at him.

Jason bares his teeth in an expression that is far from a smile.

Tim blinks back at him, trying to make his own expression as guileless as possible. "What," he says. "You're not afraid of the dark are you?"

Growling, Jason takes a single strong step into the inky blackness --

Only for the passage way to light up with dozens of tiny overhead lights.

"What –"

Tim laughs and then follows Jason into the passageway before the panel can close shut behind him. Maybe he moves a little too fast or Jason a little too slowly, but Tim finds himself pressed chest to chest against Jason's body with his right hand fluttering in the air above Jason's left shoulder.

Tense and licking his suddenly dry lips, Tim stares up at Jason's face.

"Motion detectors and LED light clusters on a track," Tim blurts out. At Jason's confused look, he elaborates just a little bit more. "I put them in when I was like twelve. I'm not the biggest fan of being in the dark and this was the fastest way to get outside."

Jason doesn't look away from Tim's mouth.

He also doesn't pull away.

"Yeah," he murmurs, staring at Tim's lips with a single-minded sort of hunger on his face. "That's cool." He curves an arm around Tim's waist, hauling him in close until it feels as if Tim honestly can't tell where his body starts and Jason's begins. Still staring at Tim's mouth, Jason leans in with his own lips parted.

And then –

Jason freezes.

"Tim, I –"

"Jason," Tim says. He reaches up, curving the palm of his left hand over the nape of Jason's neck as the fingers of his right hand curl in against the front of his leather jacket. Holding Jason close, he can feel the warmth of Jason's skin against his own. "I –"

The words dry up in his mouth. All Tim can think of is leaning in and kissing Jason. All he wants is to tilt his head up and press a quick kiss to Jason's lips. To satisfy a hunger he didn't even know that he had before Jason walked into his life.

Overhead, the lights on their track flicker and then go off. Plunged into a sudden and still darkness, Tim clutches Jason harder, pulling as he rocks up onto the balls of his feet and presses their mouths together.

Kissing Jason is unlike anything that Tim has done before. It's nothing like kissing Stephanie in one of Tim's father's cars or Conner grabbing him and kissing him as they hid from their respective parents in one of the cavernous hallways of Lex Luthor's downtown penthouse.

Jason's kiss is gentle, _searching._

Slick.

Surprisingly soft.

Jason backs Tim up against the wall, still kissing him, still _touching_. His big hands move almost restlessly, sliding underneath the hem of Tim's shirt and then dipping down to palm his ass through his slacks.

"Oh," Tim murmurs against Jason's mouth. He says it again when Jason pulls away and kisses his jaw, a fleeting brush of lips that makes him shiver, before moving down to nuzzle and suck a mark into the tender skin of Tim's throat. " _Oh_ –"

Tim's mother is going to _kill_ him. He knows that. She hasn't even gotten a chance to put the fear of the House into Jason and he's here with Tim, kissing him deeply and making him wish that he hadn't said no earlier. They could've been doing this in Tim's room. In his _bed_.

When Jason pulls back, it takes every ounce of Tim's willpower not to lean into him. Or worse, to _beg_ for another kiss, another touch, another _something_.

The lights come back on overhead, flooding the passageway with weak white light. Despite the light, or maybe because of it, Jason doesn't meet Tim's gaze. He holds himself back, physically moving away when Tim reaches for him.

"I said I wasn't going to flirt with you anymore," Jason says, his voice a low growl that practically vibrates with the intensity of his anger. At first, Tim can't tell whether the anger is directed at him or if Jason is angry with himself. That uncertainty lasts only a handful of seconds. "So what do I do? I _kiss_ you."

Tim licks his lips slowly.

"I kissed you first," Tim points out. "I liked it, and I know you did too."

Tim casts a surreptitious glance down at the front of Jason's black leather pants and shifts almost restlessly when he notices that Jason is just as hard as he is. Sure, Tim's sexual experience can be boiled down to hours on the internet and a few fumbling caresses from other teenagers in the dark corners of various schools, but he knows what it feels like to _want_. He also – despite having much less experience in that part – knows what it feels like to be wanted.

Emotions play across Jason's face. Anger. Frustration. Resignation. And throughout it all, a hunger so hot that Tim isn't sure how he's still standing upright from the force of it.

Eventually --

"If your parents kill me for this, I'm going to haunt the hell out of you," Jason growls out before he steps back into Tim's space. It's his turn to cup the back of Tim's head and he pulls Tim into a tight embrace that makes Tim melt against him.

Tim can't help smiling at that.

"Don't worry," he murmurs as Jason returns his attention to the faint mark already on his throat. "We don't have to tell her anything and she has a habit of missing things like this." Tim shivers delicately as Jason's teeth scrape against his throat. "Sometimes, I think my parents and half the people in this House still think of me as if I'm a child."

Jason rocks his hips forward, teasing Tim with the too-perfect drag of their erections rubbing together. He leans in to steal another kiss, smiling when Tim whimpers and presses even closer.

"Mmm," he murmurs against Tim's mouth. "Their loss."


	3. Chapter 3

Tim honestly isn't used to feeling – or looking – so disheveled.

Part of being House scion is the knowledge that Tim has to promote a certain look. He has to be perfect at all times, well-dressed and smiling even in the face of both minor and major annoyances. A House scion like Tim _isn't_ supposed to tumble out of a secret passageway with his hair all mussed and several of the buttons of his shirt undone.

Thankfully, the hallway is once again empty when they head back into the House proper. Outside of the cameras, there's no one there to see Tim stumble and brace himself against Jason's side. Tim luxuriates in the contact, in the feel of Jason's body so close to his and so warm.

"So," Jason says as they enter one of the more populated hallways in Drake House on their way to the office that Tim's parents share on one of the upper levels of the House. "What can I expect from your routine?"

Here, Tim has the grace to warm with an embarrassed flush. "I'm actually incredibly boring," Tim admits, his fingers flexing against his sides. "I go to class downtown three times a week and work in the labs here or in Drake Industries' main building."

Jason murmurs something that sounds vaguely like agreement. "Friends? Trips?"

"Once a month I go to Metropolis to see Conner," Tim says, neatly avoiding the fact that he really doesn't have many friends. Really, that he doesn't have that many friends in Gotham City proper and none amongst the Houses. The scions in most of Gotham's great Houses are either decades older or years younger. They're all married or have family looking to marry them into another House to consolidate their wealth or power.

Not exactly conducive to a friendly relationship.

That's probably why most of Tim's few friends are either Houseless or from somewhere else.

"And we go to California every year," Tim says into the sudden tense silence. "It's Conner's thing. He's got some friends there and a house in Napa Valley that his father gave him for his sixteenth birthday and we usually hole up there for winter break when Gotham gets too cold."

Jason pauses and then turns to face Tim. "Conner?"

Oh. Yeah. Jason _doesn't_ have a dossier on Tim and Tim's friends.

"Conner Luthor," Tim says. "He's my best friend."

Sort of.

Jason's features blank in a way that discomfits Tim.

Is that –?

 _Jealousy_?

"I've known him since I was _twelve_ ," Tim says with a roll of his eyes. "If we were any closer, we'd be brothers." Tim stops in his tracks, forcing Jason to do the same. He doesn't mention the kissing or anything in that vein. That _really_ wouldn't help his argument. "I'm the one that introduced him to his fiancé after all."

And what fun _that_ had been, Tim thinks with a grin. Lex Luthor had been planning to marry Conner off to someone from a wealthy house, casually and subtly arranging the marriage while making Conner think that it was all his idea. And then came Tim with Tana Moon, a young reporter from Hawaii that'd done PR work for Drake House in the past and wanted to get an in with the Luthor family. Conner had asked her out that night and proposed to her a year later.

If not for his partners and Conner's persistence, Lex Luthor probably wouldn't have anything to do with Drake House _or_ Drake Industries. The thought makes Tim smile widely.

"I think you'd like Conner," Tim says. "He's – He's good."

At that, Tim's voice softens and he catches a related smile from Jason's direction. It's a small, sort of bemused expression, but it makes Tim warm to see it. He nudges Jason with his right elbow.

"Hey," he says, "Relax. My parents don't bite and neither does Conner."

Jason snags the edge of his sleeve, turning Tim around to face him. "Not even if they find out about this?"

Even without kissing Tim or making any sort of move towards him that can be considered sexual, enough of Jason's meaning comes across that Tim finds himself blushing again. He pushes away from Jason.

"I don't tell them everything," Tim points out, smiling at the way that Jason reaches for him again before he remembers himself and pauses. He touches the very tip of his tongue to the center of his top lip before continuing on. "And I have no intention of telling them either. I'll be eighteen in a few months and after that, it won't matter _what_ they think."

Jason smirks. "That determined to keep me, eh?"

Tim wills away the warmth in his face.

"Shut up," he grumbles.

Jason of course, does no such thing. "Man, I really need to see that dossier your mother put together on me."

"No," Tim mutters, "You really don't."

~

Tim has to hope that he imagines the shrewd, almost knowing look on his mother's faced when he walks into her office with Jason on his heels. Despite a quick attempt at straightening his clothes and his hair before knocking on the door, Tim knows that he isn't at his best.

His mother can't possibly miss that.

But she says nothing, choosing instead to greet Tim and Jason with a tight smile on her face and a thick sheaf of papers.

"What's that?" Jason asks, his eyebrows drawing together in a way that makes him look even more attractive to Tim's too-interested gaze.

Tim knows the look that his mother gives Jason. It's the look that she gives _him_ when he's just asked (what she thinks) is a particularly stupid question and is waiting for him to come to that conclusion himself. It's not the nicest of his mother's many _looks_ , but when Tim dares to aim a surreptitious glance at Jason, he doesn't seem bothered.

"It's your contract," Janet says, sounding out sharp syllables as she looks up at Jason. "I assume that Tim has told you about the benefits of working for Drake House?"

The wide smile on Jason's face is very nearly a leer.

"Well he might've mentioned a few things," Jason says, his voice just sleazy enough to make Tim consider shuddering. He forces himself to still and then roll his eyes as if he too is exasperated with Jason's words and the way that he carries himself.

Tim's mother frowns, mouth tight. She gives Tim a look that says volumes about how capable she thinks he is at introducing new employees to the day to day experience of Drake House and then settles back at her desk.

"All of our employees work on shifts," she says. "As my son's personal guard, you work longer and earn more. Per year, you'll earn over eighty thousand dollars. You'll receive bonuses every time you divert a threat."

At the mention of that little bit of incentive, Tim feels his eyes widen. His mother glances at him, but chooses not to address his expression or the wonder that she certainly can see on his face.

Janet continues. "When he is in his own rooms, you don't need to share the same space as him unless you seem sure of a threat. If you wish to sleep, call for a replacement for one of the guards that aren't on shift. Do you understand?"

Jason's wide shoulders lift and drop in a shrug.

"Sounds easy enough," he says.

"Easy?" Janet hisses.

Tim balks. "Mother --"

Jason doesn't back down.

"Yeah," he says as if he's not talking to a woman that has shown no problem applying her ruthless nature to weeding out weak points in her own House. "Tim and I already went over all of the serious stuff together and I'll be working with him to find the source of this current threat. You're not a huge House with many enemies and I really don't think that Tim is in need of twenty-four hour surveillance the way that an heir from Elliot or Wayne House might be."

Almost as if she can't help herself, Janet smiles.

"You've done your homework?"

Jason grins. "You're not the only person with connections," he says. "I had my own dossier done on you the moment you put feelers out asking for a personal guard for hire. You've been a very busy woman, Mrs. Drake."

Tim's mother smiles, the expression putting Tim in mind of a very toothy shark. "Please, call me Janet."

Even the department heads of Drake Industries aren't encouraged to call his mother anything aside from Madame Drake. She must like Jason despite herself and Tim --

Well Tim can empathize.

So busy thinking about the worrying combination that is his mother making nice with his new guard, Tim doesn't realize that Jason has already gotten started on signing the very thick contract for employment until his mother clears her throat delicately in order to get his attention.

Feeling as if he's just very lost, Tim blinks and shakes his head. "Yes, Mother?"

"What do you plan to do for the rest of the day?"

_Make out with Jason._

Of course, Tim can't actually _say_ that to his mother's face. Or to anyone in their House truth be told.

He settles for a different truth. "I'm going to head down to the labs and check out the progress of the program I'm running," he says. "I think that we'll be able to figure out where the echoes are coming from and how to shut them down before the day is out. I'll let you know if we find out anything more about Marcus' mysterious employer and why he might want me dead."

When Janet smiles at Tim -- a real smile rather than a grim baring of teeth -- Tim feels himself smile back.

"Excellent job," his mother says with genuine happiness in her voice. "I'll be busy reviewing some lab results from the biomedical department, but if you find anything at all, send Azrael a page. He has permission to interrupt me if you need me."

Wow.

Tim's mother must _really_ want to find the source of their leak.

Tim does too, but then --

It's not as if _he_ has a multi-million dollar company to run. Or a House to keep in excellent shape.

"I will," Tim says at the same time that he mentally crosses his fingers, directing a hopeful prayer skyward for success. Then he glances at where Jason is still busy scrawling his name onto different parts of the contract's many pages. "Should I -- Should I _wait_?"

Nodding, Janet waves in the direction of one of the seats in her office.

Silence stretches nearly unbroken but for the scratch of Jason's pen on paper and his mother's computer emitting soft noises as she inputs data and checks them. Tim is half-tempted to curl up in the not-so-uncomfortable leather chair the way that he used to when he was little, but he thinks better of it the moment that he remembers his mother's preoccupation with appearances. Even though it's just the three of them -- mother, son, and bodyguard -- appearances are still everything.

Finally Jason finishes signing away his soul. He pushes the contract across the table to Janet and then stands up to his full height, stretching out until his back pops and he returns to towering over Tim as if _that_ is his job.

"Do I need to do anything else?"

Janet shakes her head without looking from her computer.

"Not here at least," she murmurs. "Tim can show you to the main security room and you can pick up weapons and a comm unit there."

Here, Jason frowns.

"I have my own weapons," he says, his voice almost rough with anger.

Tim doesn't understand the source of that emotion and for a moment, he's not sure who it's directed at.

Janet doesn't seem bothered. "Then use them," she says, annoyance clear in her voice. "You could be carrying a scimitar for all I care. Just use it to protect my son and you'll be fine."

"And if I don't?" Jason asks because apparently he _wants_ Janet to kill him and feed him to her pets.

At that, Janet looks up from her work. "Obviously, you won't survive long enough to fix your mistake."

 _Obviously_ she says as if normal people go around threatening each other.

Tim doesn't know what to say to that.

After that, there's no further use in sticking around. Tim gets up and leads the way out of his mother's office without looking back to see whether or not she's looking back at them.

~

"Your mother is terrifying," Jason announces once they're back in the relative privacy of one of the House's less-traveled hallways.

Tim can't find it in his heart to disagree, but he does attempt to defend his mother.

"She's had to work very hard to get where she is now," he points out in a quiet tone. "Drake House belongs to my dad's family, but she's taken the reins ever since they got married and she's had to prove herself to a ton of people."

When he glances back at Jason, there's a smirk on the other man's face.

"I'll bet that she's had to kill even more than that," he murmurs.

Tim... doesn't want to think of that.

"Do you mind staying in the lab with me all day?" Tim asks apropos of nothing, making no effort to hide his change of subject.

Jason shakes his head at that, smiling just a little.

"I don't care," Jason says easily enough. "Just get me a couple books to read while you're working and I'm good." He waggles his eyebrows at Tim and then leers at him until Tim blushes again and turns away. "I'm pretty easy to please."

" _Jason_!" Tim says at a faintly higher pitch. "We're in public."

Jason's smile doesn't fade.

"When do you have to head to the lab," he asks.

Tim shrugs a little. "I don't exactly have a schedule, you know."

"Good," Jason says, stepping close until Tim can feel his warmth through the sleeve of their respective shirts. He glances down at Tim, hunger simmering in the depths of his eyes as his gaze lingers on Tim's mouth. "So why don't we do something on our own for a little while?"

What red-blooded teenager would -- or _could_ say no to that?

~

There's a room on the third floor that used to be for the servants' children back in the 1800s when Drake House was smaller and more contained. Over the years it's been used for storage and as a guest room for visitors from smaller Houses.

The important thing is that the small room has a threadbare chaise lounge stretching out in front of one pockmarked wall and no cameras in or around it. With no windows, secret passageways, or outside access, it's one of the safest rooms in the building.

It's also the perfect room for the next part of their tryst.

Jason backs Tim up against the door the moment that Tim shuts and locks it behind them, caging Tim in with the stretch of his long arms. With how they're standing, Tim has to look up at Jason. He feels slight if not fragile, caught between the unyielding presence of the door at his back and Jason's hard body at his front.

"Is this your first time?" Jason murmurs.

At first, Tim has _no_ idea what Jason is talking about. He's only paying the barest amount of attention, staring at Jason's mouth without registering anything aside from how much he misses the way that Jason kisses him. It's only when Jason repeats his question, adding along a pointed _squeeze_ for good measure, that Tim returns back to earth.

He blinks. "My first time? With --"

Oh!

 _OH_!

He bites at his bottom lip, unsure of how to answer or what to say.

"I -- Kind of -- _Yes_."

Tim flushes even harder, hating himself a little for how _easy_ it is to make him blush and stammer all over himself as far as Jason is concerned. There's something about Jason though that just gets to Tim, as if they'd known each other in another life and they're just slotting into that familiarity in this one. Even when Tim swears that he's about to melt from blushing so hard, he can't make himself look away from Jason.

"Is that okay?"

Jason's smile is small but sincere. "It's fine," he says in a reassuring tone. "We can take things as slowly as you need."

Tim should hope so considering that they're already moving frighteningly fast in this new relationship. Between the kissing and the frotting against one another in the secret passageway, the few hours that they've spent together have been fraught with sexual tension that only increases the longer that they spend near one another.

"Slow is good," Tim says softly. He doesn't look at Jason's face.

Jason shifts, moving one hand so that he can reach out and tilt Tim's head upward until Tim _has_ to look at him. "Slow is perfect."

So is the kiss that they share a moment later. Sweet and soft with the barest flick of tongue, Jason's kiss leaves Tim shuddering and fighting back against the desire to whimper. The hand that Jason had on Tim's chin moves down to his hip, fingers like a brand against his skin.

"J- _Jason_ \--" Tim says on a sigh.

"I know," Jason murmurs roughly. "I know."

The button on Tim's pants comes undone too easily and yet not easily enough. Underneath his expensive trousers, Tim is wearing a pair of plain dark grey briefs. HIs dick presses out the front of the fabric in an almost obscene way, a spreading damp spot noticeable at where the tip is. When Jason reaches for him, Tim's dick leaps and he can _feel_ the slight spill of precome against the already wet fabric.

Jason groans against Tim's ear.

"You smell so good," he moans, his very touch feather light as he teases Tim into even higher heights of hardness. "Like sex and sweat. Like _need_."

The whole room must smell a little bit like sex now. Just from the way that Tim can't stop squirming, hips hitching as Jason thumbs his dick through his underwear. He can feel sweat prickling along the nape of his neck and the length of his spine, a moist heat that Tim simultaneously craves and can't stand.

Jason nuzzles in against Tim's throat, mouth mapping the throbbing jump of Tim's pulse and those special erogenous points that Tim didn't even know existed before that day. He brings his teeth into play after a moment, nibbling his way along the length of Tim's bared throat up to the lobe of his right ear.

When he bites Tim there, Tim nearly comes.

Tim feels his body jerk, heat flooding him. He thrusts forward helplessly, nudging the glans and part of his shaft against the amazing roughness of Jason's callused hands. Somehow, he doesn't come. It's close -- too close -- but it doesn't go beyond that. Maybe Tim's body knows that he doesn't want to come too quickly. Maybe the universe itself is having pity on Tim's first actual sexual experience.

He's just going to be thankful.

Twining his arms around Jason's neck is easy enough and Tim does so after rocking up onto his toes. He presses light kisses against Jason's smiling mouth and then turns his own attention to the strongly corded muscle in Jason's neck. Unlike Jason, Tim _doesn't_ leave a mark. It'll be easy enough to explain away the dark mark on his own neck but with him _and_ Jason possessing hickeys, someone is bound to get suspicious sooner rather than later.

Jason's hands settle on Tim's hips for the second time that day, guiding him and helping him rub off against Jason's thigh.

" _Oh_ god," Tim finds himself crooning, fingers skittering over Jason's slick and sleek leather jacket. "I'm close -- so close."

At that, Jason pulls away.

Tim only gets a moment to cry out in a harsh, wounded tone before Jason drops to his knees before him and then yanks Tim's trousers and briefs down all the way to his ankles.

"Jason -- what --"

"You've never had anyone give you head before, have you?" Without waiting for a response Jason leans in and licks a long, _wet_ line along the length of Tim's achingly erect penis. He lingers at the glans, tongue mapping the sensitive skin as Tim's head knocks back against the door as if it's the only thing keeping him upright and _sane_ , and then even flicks his tongue against the slick slit as if he's _trying_ to drive Tim out of his mind. After several moments of that exquisite torture, Jason's hands return to Tim's hips. This time, instead of helping Tim move, the pressure of those strong hands holds him still.

The door is cold against Tim's bare skin, but the heat of his mouth is almost too much.

Tim cries out at the sweet pressure, the rippling vibrations of Jason taking his dick all the way down into his throat. His eyes slide shut without his permission, clenching tightly until stars appear in that inky blackness. The moment that Jason releases his hips, Tim jerks forward. Jason _lets_ Tim fuck his mouth with too-fast thrusts, only moving to still him if he gets any more enthusiastic.

Tim comes --

Too soon.

Too intensely.

Whimpering Jason's name as if he wants to keep the word to himself as if it's a secret. He comes until he doesn't even think he could come again if anyone asked him too, shaking through the aftershocks as Jason cleans him up and tucks his softening dick away.

"What about you?" Tim asks eventually when he can remember how to talk again. He slants a meaningful glance down at where the swell of Jason's cock is obvious even with the thick fabric of his jeans and then reaches down to palm that tempting hardness.

Before he can do more than sneak a single caress, Jason's closes around his wrist.

"What --"

Jason shakes his head. "I'm good for now, babe," he murmurs despite the hungry look in his eyes that says otherwise. He leans in and eases Tim into a deep and filthy kiss that makes his toes curl in his loafers. "I'll be fine. I just wanted to know what you taste like, what you felt like in my mouth."

Tim doesn't know how he even has the presence to blush.

"Did you like it?"

Jason's grin is quick, gone in a flash but incredibly bright.

"Of course, I did," he promises. He leans in for another kiss, this one lingering until Tim feels his dick thickening in response.

Tim pulls back, smiling slightly despite himself.

"I guess we should go down to the labs, huh?" Tim shakes his head, smiling a bit at the absurdity of the situation and the feeling that he doesn't want to leave Jason for the labs just yet. "Or we could always just pretend that we've got better things to do…"

Tim trails off, smiling.

Jason snorts. "I've only been your guard for a few hours, I can't be _that_ bad an influence on you yet!"

"I don't mind," Tim insists with a surreptitious glance up at Jason's mouth. The other man's lips are faintly swollen and there's a gleam to them that makes Tim unable to focus on anything other than where Jason's mouth had been only a few moments before. "Really, the data will keep."

Rather than let himself be bowled along by Tim's hunger, Jason returns to finish fixing Tim's clothes.

"What kind of bodyguard would I be if I let you pass up an opportunity to secure the House?" He laughs at the sudden, sullen look that Tim _knows_ has settled on his face. "Sex can wait. Your safety can't."

Tim perks up at that. "But we can move a little faster once we finish with the security stuff," he says, sounding optimistic for the future.

"Only once it's all done," Jason says with a smile on his face that tells Tim that the other man might not be very opposed to breaking his own rules once in a while.

~

Tim's computer is busy beeping away when he and Jason finally make it back down to the labs after a quick detour back to Tim's suite of rooms in order to get cleaned up and for Jason to grab some novels to read. Dressed in clothing slightly more suitable for a day in the labs and far more comfortable than his business clothes, Tim sits down at his workstation and directs a baleful stare at the program running searches throughout the network.

At first, Tim doesn't see that the computer isn't stuck. It's a similar enough sound to the noise that it tends to make when stumped by a problem too large for its processing capacity and the screen is still trying to go over different parts of the network, but then he notices what his computer is actually doing --

"Tamara," Tim calls out, his eyebrows furrowed. "Can you come here for a moment?"

When Tamara moves to Tim's side, she brings her own assistant, a dark-eyed young man who is a recent hire only a few months older than Tim. Her hand rests on the young man's shoulder, guiding him forward so that he can have a better view of the workstation and the fussy computer.

"Yes, Tim?" Tamara asks, her voice warm.

Tim eases his computer chair back from the table so that Tamara can press in front of him and peer at the screen.

"Do you see the results?" Tim asks. "Tell me what you think about these 'echoes'? Do you see what I think I'm seeing in the patterns?"

Tamara leans forward, squinting. Tim can tell the exact moment that she comes to the same conclusion as he has by the way that her shoulders stiffen. "Bugs?"

Tim nods once, shortly. "Piggybacking off of the network and sending information ahead."

"What kind of information?" Tamara's assistant asks.

Tim shrugs. "Audio. Video. I don't know," he says. "We _can't_ know until we find them." They should have something for that – "Tamara, do we still have the models for that scanner I built for that government contract?"

"Oh, yes. They're in the supply closet," Tamara says. Her eyes widen and she quickly waves for her assistant to head in the direction of the locked room where all of Drake Industries' prototypes came from. "Will that really work?"

"It's got a twenty foot range and I've used it to find hidden surveillance from Elliot House in the past," Tim points out with a faintly cocky smirk on his face. "Unless they're better than I am -- and I _doubt_ that's possible—the scanners should work."

There's a reason why Drake House has been able to compete with larger Houses as a power to be reckoned with in the city. They might not have the manpower or threatening figures to keep other Houses in line, but they have technology. Tim's father is a genius. His mother a veritable _shark_ when it comes to business.

Tim is supposed to be the sum of their good parts and for the most part, he seems to be. Well, when he isn't proving himself to be his father's son in almost all things. The scanner will work well, probably too well.

"There should be about three of the models," Tim says, pulling his thoughts together. "Four if we use the prototype as well. We can split up and send some of the guards through the main building." With his mind racing, Tim smiles grimly at the plan that starts to set up in his mind. "We'll start in the labs first and then move outward to the offices and studies and then the private rooms."

~

By the time that the different teams finish checking almost the entire House several hours later, they find over a dozen and a half little devices that ping to the scanners as both sending and receiving signals and therefore, information.

Some of the small surveillance devices have miniscule cameras. Others, microphones. A few, like the one that Tim finds inside the casing of his desktop, seemed designed to capture information from his hard drive. The only thing that any of the devices have in common is that some of them have a tiny red spider printed just inside the button-like casing. It's a maker's mark that Tim knows for sure.

But _who_ made them?

How much of their lives have gone shooting out into the unknown?

How much of Drake Industries' information and their digital correspondence has gone to someone out to do their family harm?

Tim shudders as he watches his parents and all of the lab technicians crowding around the biggest workstation in the laboratory.

"You okay, Tim?"

Of course Jason notices Tim's little flinch.

Of course.

Jason reaches out and curves his fingers over Tim's right shoulder, gripping him in a viselike grip for a moment before pulling back. It's the sort of touch that'd make Tim's parents suspicious if they weren't busy trying to find out who's behind the surveillance devices placed in almost every single part of their lives. It's a touch that makes Tim wish for – among other things – privacy. Just so that he can sit down and try to put his thoughts together in private without needing to stay stoic.

"I'm fine," Tim says, lying through his teeth.

Jason's eyebrows lift in a very telling way. " _Really_?"

"I'm as fine as I'm going to be," Tim mutters under his breath. "How long do you think we'll have to stay here?"

Almost all of the excitement over the discovery has long-since faded to be replaced with a sour sort of dread. All Tim really wants is to go back to his rooms away from the scrutiny and the theories. He wants a nap if he can get one and a few moments alone with Jason before he has to turn himself back "on" and put forward the image of the proper House scion.

Tim very nearly misses the worried look that Jason directs his way.

"If you want to leave –"

Tim shakes his head. "I can't. I mean – My parents –"

"Will understand you taking a break to get some food and some fresh air," Jason murmurs, daring to lean in close and speak into Tim's ear. "If you don't want to say anything, I will. And not because I want to get you somewhere private so that we can both destress."

Tim inhales and exhales slowly, breath pushing out in a sigh as he glances at his parents.

"No," Tim says after a moment passes. "I'll handle it."

Walking towards his parents, Tim tries not to show any of the worry that he's feeling on his face.

His mother gives him a tight smile and then turns away, lifting her cell phone to her ear, undoubtedly preparing to yell at the security consultants that they pay to take care of things like this. When his dad looks up at him, there's a faint frown on his face and a faraway look on his face. He's busy, Tim notes, mind hyper focused on trying to find anything that he can that'll identify the devices' creator and ultimately the person responsible for the attack on their House.

"Hey, I'm going to go get some lunch and some rest," Tim says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his slacks. "If you want, I can have the cooks send up a light lunch for everyone."

While neither of his parents seem to hear him, he catches Tamara's eye just in time to see her nod her head and offer him a gracious smile. Tim offers her a smile of his own and then gestures for Jason to follow him right out of the laboratory. It takes him effort, so much of it at that, but Tim _doesn't_ look back.

If he does, Tim thinks that he'll probably wind up spending the rest of his day in the labs instead of getting something to eat and some time to himself that doesn't revolve around work or panicking about the issues in his House.


	4. Chapter 4

After the near-chaos of the labs and the kitchen right after, the silence of Tim's rooms is almost deafening. Tim lets Jason cover the coffee table in the suite's living room with enough food to feed an army as he reaches for the remote for the television set.

The television flickers on to the news, the only channel that Tim watches. He looks at the screen without actually seeing any of it, his mind a million miles away. The reporters onscreen could be announcing the second coming of the Joker and him being voted in as Gotham City's new mayor and Tim probably wouldn't have realized it.

That's why, when Jason comes up behind him, Tim actually _jumps_.

" _Jason_ —" Tim gasps, pressing his hand to his chest as he pants. "What the _hell_ –"

Jason's breath fans across Tim's cheek as he laughs.

"You were thinking too hard," he says. "Come eat something."

Tim shakes his head. "I’m not hungry," he says. It's a familiar untruth, one that he tells on a near daily basis and one that comes to his lips despite the actual pangs of hunger gnawing at his belly. It's just something that Tim _does_. He doesn't know why it's so easy for him to put off eating until he's nearly faint with it, but most of the time, food just isn't appealing to him.

The look that Jason gives Tim in response – one of narrowed eyes and a pinched frown settling on his mouth – makes Tim shake his head.

"I mean – I _am_ hungry," Tim murmurs without meeting Jason's eyes, "but I'm not really in the mood to eat right now." It's not a complete lie, but still --

Jason doesn't look as if he believes Tim.

Good.

He probably shouldn't.

"I've been with you all day, Tim," Jason says, his voice low and intense. "The last time _I_ ate was at breakfast and that was hours ago. I'm starving and you probably are too." Jason moves to gently grip Tim's wrist and then tugs him over to the couch in front of the table. "So please, eat something."

Jason starts putting together a plate of food for Tim before Tim even has the chance to think of a counter to his quiet plea. It's not as much food as Jason could give Tim and it goes more towards sandwiches and fruit than the heavier fare of pot roast and scalloped potatoes that Jason then heaps onto his plate.

"What kind of bodyguard would I be if I let you starve to death?" Jason says, catching the way that Tim is sitting and staring down at his plate as though he expects the food to leap off of the plate and attack him. "Go on, I won't judge you for being a picky eater, but you do _have_ to eat."

Tim slides his fingers around the golden rim of the plate in his hands. It's one of the House's nicer china patterns and he distracts himself in it for a few moments.

"Tim –"

"I know, Jason," Tim says, sighing the other man's name. Less than a day and Jason already sees so much of Tim – too much, if he's being honest with himself. But then, this _is_ what he wanted. Sort of. Tim lifts one of the sandwiches to his mouth and nibbles at one corner as Jason makes short work of decimating his own meal.

Tim manages to eat two whole sandwiches and a few apple slices. He stops after that though and sets his plate down on a clean space on the low table. He winces at the way that Jason looks at him and then reaches for a small cluster of grapes.

"Good," Jason says with a satisfied smile on his face.

Tim tries and fails to hide his own smile. "Shut up," he mutters good-naturedly. "I just wanted some grapes."

Ignoring Jason is harder than it should be. Tim keeps glancing to the side, watching Jason out of the corner of his eyes and he knows that he's not being subtle. Subtle tends not to be his thing. Thankfully, beyond a telltale curve to his wide mouth when he's not chewing his food, Jason doesn't comment.

Eventually, things settle down into a peaceful stillness. The news is still on but the volume is a little lower, more for background noise than anything else as Tim sits on the floor with his tablet and Jason stretches out across the couch and dozes.

Awake, Jason is a force to be reckoned with. He's all muscular limbs and meaningful smirks.

Asleep –

Asleep, Jason almost looks innocent. He definitely looks young. He's not much older than Tim is, that Tim knows from his mother's dossier. He'd come into his position as House Wayne's second scion when he was only twelve and was out of the House by his fifteenth birthday. That had been a few years ago.

"I can feel you thinking from here," Jason murmurs without opening his eyes. He rolls over onto his side and then shifts about until he gets comfortable. "You should turn your brain off for a while, get some rest."

Tim shakes his head. "I can't," he says. "There's just too much going on."

"Hm?" Jason opens his eyes just long enough to look at Tim's face with a measuring stare. "Like what?"

Tim sighs and then says, "Between my mother's obsession with making me into the perfect scion, the person trying to tear our House down, and this – this _thing_ between us, how can I stop thinking for a second?"

"C'mere," Jason murmurs, reaching over in order to grab at Tim's arm.

It's surprisingly easy to get used to the sort of manhandling that Jason seems to be fond of.

When Jason tugs, Tim rises to his knees in a less than graceful fashion and allows Jason to move him about on the couch until the two of them can lay comfortably together. Of course, that means that Tim winds up halfway sprawled across his guard's bigger body, fingers curling in the worn grey t-shirt that Jason'd been wearing underneath his jacket.

He's not going to complain.

"Don't think," Jason murmurs. His chest rumbles against the side of Tim's face as he talks. It feels nice. Comforting.

When he starts to rub Tim's back with broad circles of his callused hands, Tim melts against him. They've kissed. Jason's had his mouth on Tim's _dick_. All of this in the space of a day. Less than a day really.

And yet the touch of Jason's hand, the smooth yet purposeful way that he rubs at Tim's tense smile, is one of the most intimate things that they could've done. This isn't even remotely similar to the way that other scions interact with their bodyguards. This isn't even the sort of thing that Tim has seen his parents do.

It's so…

 _Sweet_.

Tim yawns. Each pass of Jason's hand over his spine draws him deeper, makes his head feel even heavier. He strokes Jason's sides because he can and because he wants to, pressing as close as he can and inhaling a scent that seems particular to the man underneath him.

Gunpowder. Cigarette smoke. The richly sweet smell of his cologne.

It's quite possible that Tim could lay there for _days_ , just for the chance to breathe Jason in. He probably shouldn't, but Jason just smells so _good_ –

"You're still thinking," Jason murmurs with an amused-sounding lilt to his voice.

Tim shakes his head. "Only about good things, I promise."

Jason snorts. "Go to sleep, Tim."

~

Tim wakes up in his own bed.

Alone.

When he glances at the clock by his bedside, he's surprised to see how late it is. He and Jason had fallen asleep together in the living room while the six o'clock news played over their heads. The clock on his nightstand says that it's almost four in the morning.

No wonder Tim is alone in the bed. Jason probably dumped him in bed whenever he'd woken up and moved to the other bedroom. The thought –

Hurts.

"It's not like I told him to stay with me," Tim mutters to himself. He sits up in bed, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes until the only thing he can see is a solid, inky blackness with pinpricks of white stars in their depths.

A soft snore cuts through the silent night, sounding far too close to Tim for it to be coming from the next room.

When Tim turns, he's more than surprised to see Jason sprawled out in the oversized armchair that takes up the entirety of the right corner near the back of his room. It's close enough that he can get to his weapons and protect Tim in case of a raid, but still far enough that they can pretend that there's nothing being born between them should anyone barge into Tim's rooms in the middle of the night.

It's the smart thing to do.

But Tim frowns anyway and slips out of bed.

When he reaches Jason's side, he reaches out and gently shakes Jason's shoulder.

It doesn't quite go as planned.

Quick as a striking cobra, Jason's hand flies out. His fingers press into Tim's wrist hard enough to bruise – if not to break – and then he forces Tim down to the floor. He only opens his eyes when Tim cries out and tries to struggle.

"Shit, _Tim_ –" Jason yanks his hands away from Tim's arm as if burned, staring at them as if he doesn't even recognize them. " _Shit_!"

Tim shakes his head, scared halfway out of his mind. Not of Jason, not really, but of the instincts that allow him to be so casual and so efficient about hurting other people. _His eyes weren't even open_.

"What – what –"

"I thought you were an attacker," Jason says, his voice soft and filled with pain. "But I could have hurt _you_. I can't do this –" Struggling to his feet, Jason starts to head to the couch. "I'll sleep on the couch."

Tim calls Jason's name. "Stop, please," he says.

"Why," Jason snaps, "So that I can risk hurting you some more?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Tim says as he gets to his feet. "You didn't do it on purpose."

"Which doesn't make it better," Jason bites out. "I could have hurt you. I could have dislocated your shoulder."

Tim's blood seems to ice over in his veins. That… that was something that he hadn't thought of. But he shakes his head, frowning. "So you have weirdly violent nightmares, big deal," he says. "Who doesn't? All you have to do is figure out a way to turn those reactions off when you're with me."

"It's not that simple," Jason says.

"I know," Tim replies, still sitting on the floor and staring up at Jason. "But I don't want you to leave and I know that you don't want to leave either. So this is all that we _can_ do." In the weak light shining in from the moon outside, Tim's wrist looks fine. He's a little sore and will probably have a pattern of bruises over his skin, but he's _fine_.

Jason sighs. "In less than twenty four hours I've kissed you, had sex with you, and then hurt you," he mutters bitterly. "I can't call myself your bodyguard in good conscience. Do you know how fucked up this is?"

"I'm not going to regret the sex," Tim says in strident tones as Jason attempts once more to head for the door of his bedroom. "I'm not going to regret kissing you either. I wanted both of those things and I get that you weren't trying to hurt me just now. It's not your fault."

The smile on Jason's face is bitter, cruel. "Then whose fault is it?"

Tim holds Jason's gaze. "Whoever hurt you badly enough that you couldn't even be safe in your sleep, that's who."

Jason's mouth hangs open. "Tim –"

"I'm fine, Jason," Tim insists. "And you'll be too." Tim finally makes to stand up. His wrist aches something fierce when he goes to brace himself on the chair that Jason had recently vacated, but it's nothing that a brace and some rest won't be able to fix. "I'm not going to make you talk about anything that you don't want to, but…"

At the dark look on Jason's face, Tim trails off.

"Jason?"

Jim shakes his head, silent for so long that Tim suspects that he's going to walk right out of the room without saying anything else.

Tim is quickly proven wrong.

Very wrong.

"I killed the Joker, you know," Jason says in a casual, almost conversational tone. "He kidnapped me when I was fifteen, beat the shit out of me and my birth mother in order to get back at Bruce, and then tried to handcuff me to a bomb."

Tim can't muffle his gasp. "How did you escape?"

When Jason turns to face him, there's a faint smirk on his face. "Please, I'd been picking locks since I was a kid. It was easy to get out of the cuffs."

"And killing him?"

Jason doesn't answer immediately. He paces around Tim's room like a caged tiger, gaze on everything except for Tim's face. Eventually though, he comes closer, dropping down on his knees next to Tim.

"You're only the second person I've ever told about this," Jason says, softly. He reaches for Tim then, his hands warm and callused. "But the Joker _didn't_ die in that explosion. I know that's what Wayne House said in the press release, but that's not what happened. I got loose and killed him with the crowbar that he'd used on me."

Oh.

No.

Tim's mouth falls open. "Jason –"

"He'd killed my mom and was going to do the same thing to me," Jason spits out the words like bullets shooting from a gun. "And all to get back at Bruce for something so fucking _stupid_ that he couldn't even remember what it was when he was ranting." Jason's lip curls with a sneer. "I could've died –"

"But you didn't," Tim murmurs. " _That's_ what's important."

Jason doesn't seem convinced.

"Tell that to House Wayne," he mutters. "Sometimes, I think Bruce was more upset that I defended myself than the fact that he almost killed me." Jason shakes his head again, frowning. "I still have nightmares about what could've been. What if I hadn't been able to pick the locks? What if he'd killed me with the crowbar –"

The pain in Jason's voice, on his face, and in the way that he holds himself as if preparing for rejection –

Tim wants to hold him. Help him. _Something_.

"I'm so sorry," Tim says. The words feel pointless, so small and useless as they fall from Tim's mouth.

Tim glances up at Jason, trying to read him. "Is there anything I can do – I mean, to help?"

One corner of Jason's wide mouth twists with a wry smirk. "Got a time machine?"

"Not yet," Tim says, only half-joking. "We've had one in R&D since I was six and none of us have figured out how to make it work. We've lost about four rabbits that way and we don't test it anymore." The "but I would if you asked" is silent, but very heavily implied, Tim knows.

When Jason barks out a sharp, short bit of laughter, Tim grins.

"You're not kidding are you?" Jason murmurs.

Tim shakes his head, still smiling. "I never kid about science." When he holds out his hand, Jason yanks him up to his feet until they're pressed close together. "Now, maybe we should both start getting ready for the day. I don't think either one of us is in the mood to get more sleep."


	5. Chapter 5

Jason only lets Tim out of his eyesight long enough for each of them to shower (separately).

By the time that Tim gets out of his own shower with his hair damp enough to curl against the nape of his neck, Jason is already fully dressed in a dark red shirt and a pair of well fitted blue-jeans. His jacket, when Tim looks for it, is draped carefully over the foot of Tim's bed.

"That was fast," Tim says, carefully towel drying his hair. He'd foregone using the dryer in his bathroom for a change, just to use a little less power than usual and so his hair is still not anywhere near as dry as he'd like it to be. "Did you find everything okay?"

Jason nods.

"Thanks for showing me how to use the shower," he says, a sheepish sort of smile settling on his face as he watches Tim dry his hair with a towel and then toss it aside. "Back in my apartment building, we only have old-fashioned plumbing in the place."

Blinking, Tim speaks without thinking. "But Selina runs one of the biggest gangs in Gotham. She should have more modern housing. That's –" Tim pauses, frowning. "This stuff comes standard in any housing built after a certain point. Everyone knows that."

"Not if you're living in the Narrows," Jason says. There's censure in his voice, almost as if he's disappointed in Tim for not knowing. He probably is.

Tim still feels it like a sting. He looks down at his bare feet instead of at Jason's face and sighs. "I'm sorry," he says, "I should probably think before I speak, huh?"

"It's fine," Jason says in a way that makes Tim think that it _isn't_ all fine. "It's not like you'd know what goes down in the rest of the city. Drake House only owns the complex out here and that tower. The Narrows are where criminals and Houseless hired muscle tend to live. They're – _we're_ – used to having the old stuff. It's not that bad." Jason's mouth lifts with a faint smile. "If you lived in the actual city, you'd see how people lived and you'd be used to it by now."

There's a sudden, sinking feeling in the pit of Tim's stomach. He doesn't see very many Houseless. Not really. Drake House hires a few Houseless to work in Drake Industries, but Tim doesn't actually _see_ any of them. Even when he's in class and everyone is supposed to be equal regardless of classism, Tim knows that they really aren't.

Honestly, the only Houseless he sees are the ones who live in New York and on the west coast where the House System was phased out decades ago for being horribly inefficient and a waste of space management right before he was born. And there, they're not really Houseless.

They're just… people.

Tim doesn't know how he could've forgotten that for a second.

Tim shakes his head, frowning. "You're wrong."

"Hm?" Jason doesn't sound angry, only confused. "Wrong about what?"

Tim shrugs as he slides back the folding screen that separates his walk-in closet from the rest of his bedroom.

"I don't see as much as I should, but I don't think I'd want to get used to seeing people treated like they're lesser than me just because they had the 'misfortune' to be born to people that didn't bribe and steal their way to success." His fingers flex around the border of the screen. There's so much more that he wants to say and none of it – absolutely none of it – can be uttered out loud in his supposedly private rooms. But outside –

Tim can feel the cogs of his mind working, turning as he starts to see avenues and ideas come together in his head.

"Actually, can we talk about this some more later?" Tim asks. When Jason nods at him, Tim gives him a real smile. "Great! Now give me a few minutes to think and to put on some actual clothes on. We can head downstairs and I'll be frighteningly early for once."

With that, Tim slips into his closet.

That Tim even has a walk-in closet at all is his mother's fault. When they were remodeling his rooms back when Tim was twelve, the only thing that he'd asked for was more storage space. He'd meant for his books and his computers, but his mother, ever annoyed with his decision to choose computers over clothes, had gone with the closet instead.

Tim _still_ doesn't have that many clothes in it. Aside from the suits that his mother buys for him every year on his birthday and a few slightly informal outfits to wear to the office, Tim's closet is mostly empty. Things like the t-shirts and shorts that he wears when working on computers in the other spare room of his suite stay there.

Halfway through dressing, Tim hears the folding frame creak open and when he turns he catches Jason's eye.

"Yes?" Tim asks, feeling his eyebrows raise. "What's up?"

Jason manages a smile. "Once we get out there, I don't think we'll have any privacy," he murmurs, eyes falling to Tim's mouth with a lingering and heated look that makes Tim flush. "I should at least try to be a good bodyguard, shouldn't I?"

Tim can absolutely get behind that.

"Yes," he says, taking several eager steps towards Jason. Once they're close enough, he presses against the muscular firmness of Jason's body, sighing at the way that Jason immediately settles a hand low on the small of his back underneath his shirt. "We should – _mm--_ we should be more professional. I don't have class today, but I do have meetings and research to handle. "

Of course, Tim _does_ say that while working a hand between their bodies so that he can run his fingers over the prominent bulge of Jason's dick where it strains against the dark denim.

Jason's laughter comes out rough with want.

"Yeah," he murmurs as his fingers dip down towards the waistband of Tim's boxers. "How professional do we have to be?"

Tim gasps at the feel of Jason's strong hand on the bare skin of his ass. His hips jerk forward, cock shooting slick in his boxers as he grinds against Jason's leg. For the space of a few moments, the only thing that Tim can think about is the way that pleasure seems to shoot up his spine and make his knees weak.

"N – no blowjobs in public," Tim eventually manage to say as he forces himself to think about something _other_ than how easy it would be to simply rub himself off against Jason's thigh. "Or in any secluded rooms we come across."

Jason's fingers spasm against Tim's skin, yanking him even closer.

"Ah, but what about secret passages?" Jason asks as his breath fans out against Tim's left ear. "How do you feel about blowjobs in those?"

Tim wants to laugh. At the moment though… he thinks that any sound that he makes will probably come out sounding more like a sob than anything else.

"L-love them," he finally manages to gasp out. "And if you manage to find one at Hudson while I'm in the library, you have my permission to ravish me in it later."

"It's a deal," Jason rasps out, practically growling just before he presses his lips against Tim's. This kiss is hotter, hungrier than the handful of kisses that they've shared before. Jason gives no quarter, easily backing Tim up against the nearest flat surface and leaning into him as they rock together.

Tim is starting to wonder if they'll ever get any actual work done. He registers that thought and then discards it, fingers going down to the fly of Jason's pants. He fumbles the buttons open and then the zipper, fingers practically _aching_ for a chance to actually touch Jason.

Of course, that's when Jason decides to change things up a bit. He moves Tim – and really, that shouldn't be as attractive as it is – down to the carpeted floor, only pulling away from Tim's parted lips to nuzzle kisses along the length of his throat. The little kisses are too light to do anything more than make Tim squirm and sigh as he tries to thrust up against Jason's larger, harder body.

By the time that Jason finally gets his pants down, Tim thinks that the world could be ending and all he'd do is beg Jason to keep touching him.

Tim wriggles out of his boxers without Jason having to ask.

Nearly naked except for his unbuttoned button up that covers absolutely _nothing_ on Tim's body, Tim pauses. He's never been naked in front of anyone before. Not like this. Not with someone looking at him with hunger on their face and proof that they're just as invested as he is.

Tim has never had _this_ –

And it's a little scary.

"D – do you want the lights off or not?" Tim manages to ask through the tightness in his throat. He looks up at Jason with his eyes opened wide, taking in the way that Jason's muscles flex underneath the body-hugging fabric of his shirt. There's something both appealing and alarming about the fact that Jason is still wearing most of his clothes.

Jason licks his lips. "Whatever you want," he murmurs, stroking one hand over Tim's side with an almost tentative touch. "This is supposed to be good for both of us, remember?"

"Yeah," Tim murmurs, his voice soft and just a little bit shaky. "I remember."

Bracing himself on one elbow, Tim shifts and then reaches up to curl his fingers in against the nape of Jason's neck. His hand splays across warm skin, pulling him _in_ until their mouths meet in another kiss. When Tim tilts his head back, Jason shifts, panging against Tim's ear.

"So we're good?"

Tim gasps out a laugh. "Yeah, we're good."

~

Tim's mother meets them in the garage next to the idling Bentley.

Fifteen minutes after they were supposed to be downstairs.

"What took you so long?" Janet asks Tim with a suspicious frown on her face.

Without looking at Jason _or_ his mother, Tim manages a shrug. "I needed a new shirt and then I had to run back upstairs for my tablet." He tries to sound casual and calm, like someone that hadn't spent the past few hours fooling around with their bodyguard. Maybe his mother doesn't buy it, maybe she does. The important thing is that she doesn't say _anything_.

"Will you be coming right home after your classes?" Janet asks. She gives them both a _look_. "Remember, we're leaving for the Dents' party at six. As a family."

Jason speaks up before Tim can.

"Actually, ma'am, I thought I'd have your driver swing by my place so that I could get my clothes and set the alarm." He pauses for the space of a moment, just long enough for Tim's mother to interject if she wanted to, but then pushes on. "I mean, if you want I can just wear what I have on but I'd stand out a bit too much for that –"

The look that Janet gives Jason is icy enough that it'd freeze a lesser man to death. "If you don't have Tim back by five o'clock, you're fired."

It's… not as bad as Tim expects. He's seen his mother fire people for even less and at least she doesn't raise her voice. If she'd been mad, there would've been yelling.

"We'll be back in time, mother," Tim says.

Tim dares to give his mother a quick hug that leaves her gawping at him and then he slips into the back of the Bentley with Jason right on his heels. With the partition already up between the driver's seat and the back, Tim sighs and lets his head drop back against the cushioned headrest. He squeezes his eyes shut a moment later.

"That went well," Jason muses.

Tim slides one eye open, pinning Jason with a mild glare. "That depends on how you stretch the definition."

Jason's smirk is wicked. "She didn't fire me on the spot or shoot me. I'm taking that as a win."

~

It's surprisingly easy for Tim to get used to having a human shadow.

For one thing, Jason in "work mode" is far more personable than Azrael in the same mindset. The few times that Azrael had come with Tim to campus or even to Metropolis, it'd been like walking around with a menacing robot. Like a Terminator but without being vaguely amusing.

Jason isn't like that. He'd been great about waiting just outside the door as Tim met with Dr. Kinsolving, but had otherwise stuck close as Tim met with his group members and started researching the history of the House System in the city. Even when Tim'd gone to get an early lunch for them with his student ID card, Jason had gone with him in the terrifyingly long line.

The difference between Jason and the House guards that Tim has otherwise been saddled with is good.

It's great, actually, because Tim still doesn't want _or_ need an Azrael of his own. He's not like his mother who prefers obedience over friendships. Azrael does everything that she tells him to and maybe, that's not such a good idea.

"Do you have any more meetings today?" Jason asks as he follows Tim out of the library.

Tim blinks. Aside from hopefully seeing Stephanie at the party and talking to her about her life spent moving between the Houses and the Houseless, Tim's schedule is clear. "Um… no?" He pauses. "Oh! Is this about getting your things? We can leave now if you want. I'm sure Robert won't mind having something to do."

"Thanks," Jason says in a light tone. He grins at Tim in the next moment. "Hey, you'll get to see what it's like living without the Houses looming over you." At the possibly poleaxed look that Tim gives him, Jason's smile widens. "What? Did you think that I'd really leave you in the car while I got my stuff? I'm not trying to get you killed, here."

Tim snorts. "And here I thought that you just wanted to use me to bring boxes out to the car."

He likes the way that Jason looks at him, the way that Jason laughs with him. It's such an amazing feeling that there's a part of Tim's mind that wishes desperately that he could do it all the time. When Jason laughs and reaches out to ruffle his hair with a lingering touch that gives Tim goosebumps, it takes every ounce of Tim's will not to lean into him.

Two friends playing around on campus?

That's one thing.

The Drake House scion getting a little overly friendly with his new guard?

His mother would find out by the time they got back home.

Tim doesn't want to see his mother angry. Not at him.

So Tim _doesn't_ touch like he wants to. He doesn't linger. He _does_ , however, give Jason a small smile as they head back to the parking garage.

Later, Tim promises himself. Later after he's finished putting his thoughts together on Gotham City's adherence to the House system and he's gone through another party at his parents' wishes, then he'll have all the time in the world to indulge in the powerful desire to be near Jason and to be with him.

"I never thought my life'd be like this," Tim muses as they hit the parking garage near the library. His words break the silence that's been sitting like a spell over them for the past few moments, but there's something that makes him feel as if there's no better time to utter them.

"Like what?" Jason asks.

"Fun," Tim admits. "And a little scary."

Jason actually stops walking so that he can look at Tim. "The surveillance –"

"No," Tim says. "Well, not just that. I don't know – there's something about _us_. How we click. Our chemistry. How I feel as if we can tell each other anything with no consequences." Tim catches himself laughing, bitterly for a change. "I didn't expect to have that."

Jason, in a matter of fact tone, says, "But you do."

Somehow, it's just what Tim needs to hear. "Thanks," he says, not bothering to hide his smile. He dares to lean in close, bumping shoulders with Jason in the darkened garage. If they were anywhere else, any _one_ else, Tim would kiss him.

But then, if Tim were anyone else –

He wouldn't be here with Jason.

"Do you think Gotham would be any better if the House System was shut down?" Tim asks.

"Yes and no," Jason murmurs with the immediacy of a person that's spend time thinking about the subject. "I think that the House system lets good people fall between the cracks because they're not part of a powerful family. If we got rid of it, they'd have more chances to do better, but –"

Tim snorts. "I knew there was one coming.

Jason's smile is soft and indulgent. "But Gotham was created by Houses like yours. That much history, that much power? If we woke up tomorrow and the House system was gone in favor of _actual_ class equality? I think they'd still be in charge."

"So to take down the House system, we'd have to take down the individual Houses," Tim murmurs without thinking.

"That's what your research was about?" Jason asks, sounding genuinely shocked.

Shrugging, Tim tries to change the subject. "What? No! This is for a project," he says.

"Yeah, a project that'll end with everyone in Gotham after you," Jason says, his tone just a bit heated. "Is this what you’ve been thinking about all day?"

"Well… yeah," he confesses. "Wouldn't you? I can't believe I never thought about the House system like this before. It's not helping as many people as it hurts."

Jason frowns. "Tim –" He pauses. "Okay, I don't disagree with you. I lived outside of a House until I was adopted by Bruce so I know what it's like, but Tim, if you do anything more than _think_ about changing Gotham, you're going to need help. And maybe another bodyguard."

The wry smile on Tim's face feels like it belongs there. "I know," Tim says. "I mean – when California shut down their House system, the Houses clamped down on resources. But that was a whole state. Gotham is one of the few major cities that still adhere so strongly to the system. It should be easier to change a city than a state."

"You'd think that," Jason says, but he's smiling. "Just warn me if you decide to stage a coup and get Dent kicked out of office or something like that."

"Why?" Tim asks.

"I'll need time to build up an arsenal," Jason replies.

Somehow, Tim thinks that the other man isn't joking.

~

When they get to Jason's apartment, Selina Kyle is sitting on the steps with her bodyguards at the curb.

Tim doesn't need Jason to point her out. For all that Tim has never met Gotham's biggest opponent of the House system, he's seen her around. Despite the fact that she's been working to undermine the system and essentially redistribute wealth and property since Tim was a kid, Selina still gets invited to House parties.

In fact, Tim realizes that she'd probably have been invited to the Dents' party.

Jason gets out of the car first and then turns back to Tim.

"I texted her and told her we were coming," Jason says by way of explanation. "She probably just wants to make sure that you're nothing like the current asshole in Elliot House who wanted to hire me for muscle a few months back."

Tim blinks. "Thomas Elliot wanted to hire _you_?"

Tim's met the scion to Elliot House. It wasn't fun. Thomas Elliot is the same age as Bruce Wayne and yet he's in the same position as Tim. The fact that his mother is still clinging to life and holding onto the purse strings seems to have made the man a little… unhinged. Their one and only meeting had left Tim frowning at his computer and wondering how anyone could've stomached him enough to have a daughter with him.

"I don't like him," Tim mutters under his breath.

Jason laughs and squeezes his shoulder. "No one does. I think that's _why_ he wanted me as his bodyguard."

Selina stands up when they get close. She's taller than Tim is, but then, most people are. Slender with light brown skin and a sleek black haircut, Selina Kyle looks half as threatening as Tim's mother does on a regular basis. That probably means that she's twice as ruthless.

When Tim moves to introduce himself, Selina greets him with a smile and a firm grip on his right hand.

"You're the scion for Drake House," Selina murmurs, peering at him as if she can read his mind. "I've been hearing rumors about you and your House. Is it true that your House had to deal with an intruder?" Selina doesn't wait for Tim to respond, picking up his flinch easily. "Ah. I knew the rumors had to have some truth to them. And Jason brought you out anyway?"

Jason scoffs. "He's safer out here than in that House." He glances up at his apartment and then at Selina's two bodyguards. "Can I borrow one of your bodyguards, Selina? I came to get some of my stuff and leave the alarm codes and key with you."

Selina waves and one of her guards starts trudging up the stairs to Jason's apartment building. "Go on," she says when Jason glances at Tim. "I'll keep an eye on your boss."

The moment that Jason disappears into the apartment, Selina's smile changes. There's something enigmatic and searching about the way that she looks at him and Tim, helplessly following instincts, takes a single step back.

"You're going to be at Harvey's party tonight aren't you?"

It's just about the _last_ thing that Tim expects to hear from Selina.

"Excuse me?" Tim asks.

Apparently, his question is as close to confirmation for Selina because she continues.

"Watch your back tonight," Selina says in a solemn tone that is at odds with the look on her face. "I've heard rumors – nothing that I can send to my contacts in the police force – that you're being targeted. Something about your House – information, maybe, or a new form of tech – is making someone powerful feel very uncomfortable and there are people out there that want to see Drake House torn down."

Tim frowns. "What – Why are you telling _me_ this? Shouldn't you tell Jason?"

"Jason, for all of his positive attributes, can be a little stifling at times like this," Selina says. "If I told him about this threat before he'd accepted the job, he'd go in armed for bear. And that might get you _both_ killed."

Selina reaches into one of the unzipped pockets on her jacket and slides out a slim slate gray phone that lights up at the touch of her fingers. "My associate will be at the party in disguise. If I find out anything from him, I'd like to have your number so that we can get in touch."

"What – Oh, sure."

Absently, Tim rattles off the digits to his phone.

"This 'associate' of yours," Tim says, "Will I be able to recognize him if things get bad?"

Selina smiles, lips curving up. "Sure. Just look for the man with no face."

~

Later, once they're in the car and back on their way to Drake House, Tim calls his mother. Her phone rings and rings to the point where Tim's starting to worry. Just as he gets ready to hang up and try calling the landline in the office, she answers.

"Yes?" Janet says. "I assume that you're calling me because you're running late?"

"Actually," Tim says, "We're on our way home. I just wanted to check and see how things were going with the lab. You know, with the bugs?"

Silence.

Painfully pointed silence.

"Mother?" Tim says hesitantly.

"Your father has it under control," his mother says, her voice sharp. "You need to let it go."

What –

"Mother –"

"He's doing his best and he doesn't want you involved."

Involved? In _what_?

Tim barely manages to ask that question before his mother rushes him off of the phone and then hangs up.

Glancing at Jason, he decides to tell him everything that Selina had said.

"I think there's something going on with my House, Jason," Tim says in a quiet voice. "Selina said that there was someone looking to shut our House down and my mom – she's acting so weird. There's something out there and I don't know what it is, but it's bad."

Jason's eyes narrow. "Did she tell you anything else?"

Tim shrugs. "Only that I should watch my back tonight and that she has someone that'll be at the party in case we need help."

"That's it?" Jason asks.

Tim shrugs. "I got the feeling that she was being cryptic on purpose."

"Yeah," Jason says with a gusty sigh. "That sounds like Selina all right."


	6. Chapter 6

On a good day, Tim hates parties.

Maybe he wouldn't if he'd been a more social child or had more than like three friends, but he's guessing that he's just too introverted to find fun in cramming themselves into a ballroom and pretending they don’t dislike the person they're chatting with. Maybe he'd like them more if he wasn't always the youngest person in the room after the youngest Fox sisters.

But then, if Tim's being honest with himself, this doesn't even come _close_ to being a good day.

Even the sight of Jason in a sleek black suit that makes him look coolly untouchable and dangerous can't distract Tim from his unease. Tim's been on edge all night and it only gets worse as he hangs out near the back of the room.

"Relax," Jason murmurs via the comm unit in Tim's ear. He's only a few feet away, but the distance between them is palpable.

Tim shakes his head, drawing a strange look from the young woman standing close by on her phone.

"I can't. I mean, I'm trying but it's just too much going on at once." He gives Jason a tiny smile when the other man looks at him. "Honestly, I'll relax once I'm home."

He's done his duty for the night after all, walking around and smiling at people that his mother likes (or hates) and pretending that he's not worried that one or more of them might be trying to destroy his family. The sad thing is that Tim's so good at faking his smiles that no one outside of Jason and _maybe_ Tim's own mother notice that something is off.

For the rest of the night, Tim gets to avoid actual interaction with people. He stands in a corner by himself, people watching and drinking bottled water in what's probably the most suspicious way possible. But near the end of the night, his mother comes up to him with one of Lucius Fox's daughters following behind her at a fast enough clip that the flared out hem of her pale green party dress swirls around her calves.

"Mother –" Tim doesn't actually get to finish his sentence, something that he doesn't think he's ever going to get used to.

"I'm sure you know Tam Fox," Tim's mother says with a smile that is decidedly _smug_. "Her father works at the R &D department for Wayne Enterprises and she's just completed an internship at STAR Labs."

Tim wants to ask his mother why she's coming to _him_ here of all the places, but then he remembers that he actually _likes_ not being the source of his mother's annoyance. So he steps forward and gives Tam a handshake and a smile.

If his hands tremble, Tam is kind enough not to point it out.

"It's good to meet you," Tim says.

Between them, his mother _beams_ as if she's just made a perfect match and then excuses herself with some plainly transparent excuse about needing to check on her husband. When she leaves, Tim and Tam wind up sharing an amused look.

Tam's nose wrinkles when she smiles. "I'm sorry about that," she says. "I told my mom that I wasn't following in Dad's footsteps and taking up with Wayne House a few days ago and she's been trying to introduce me to every single House that she can." She shrugs. "I keep trying to tell her that I don't care about the House System or working for one of the Houses, but she's just not hearing it."

"You – you don't like the House System?" Tim asks, blinking rapidly.

Tam shakes her head. "Hell no. We're one of the newest Houses and one of like _four_ Houses in the city that aren't headed by one of Gotham's rich, white sons. Do you know how bad things get for us?"

Silently, Tim shakes his head.

"Last week, Wayne had to have a car bring my dad home because someone went and slashed all of the tires on his car," Tam says in a furious whisper. "We had to transfer schools because some jerk's kids got _pissed_ that Bruce Wayne was fighting for our family to be recognized as a proper House and set fire to my big sister's locker."

Tim thinks back to what Jason had said about the House System and how dangerous it is to even _think_ about changing it.

"What if I could give you a way to put your mother off for a little while?" Tim asks.

The suspicious look that Tam gives him changes her face a little. It's a shrewd sort of look that reminds him of Selina.

"What would I have to do?"

Tim holds up his hands. "Nothing. Not much, I mean. There's something I've started looking into about the Houses and I'd like to have help on it," he says. "You could put in some time in our labs if you wanted or even just hang out in the greenhouse if you wanted."

If anything, Tam seems to become even more suspicious of Tim.

"Is this about the Houses?"

Tim nods once. "I don't – I _can't_ say anything more. There are too many cameras and nosy people around for this to be safe, but I'll have a car sent to your building in a few days. We can say that you're looking into an open position on my team and talk more then."

"You've thought this through," Tam says, her eyes wide.

"Not enough," Tim admits. "I'm surprised that you can't feel my bodyguard staring at us right now. I think he's realized that I'm not even _close_ to following his directions about this whole mess." Tim smiles. "But I think that we can make a difference here, don't you?"

At first, Tam's mouth purses with a faint frown.

Then she smiles and nods. "Okay, yeah. I'm free on Friday in the afternoon," she says. "I'm sure that by now, our mothers have exchanged all of our personal information so I'm expecting an email from you before then."

"About what?"

Tam shrugs, the gesture charming. "How much you're planning to pay me to work for you?"

~

After Tam heads back to her family, things change for the worse.

Tim decides that he's had enough of propping up his share of wall space and heads through the crowd to his own parents with Jason right on his heels. He's almost there when he feels someone grab for him. With so many people around him, Tim can't see the culprit. When he tries to jerk free, he feels the sharp edge of a knife skate over the outside of his left arm.

The pain makes Tim cry out. People turn around in the crowd, but no one seriously tries to help. No one would in this crowd.

Jason reaches for Tim's attacker, but Tim can see the moment that his fingers slide right off of the back of a sleek coat. When Jason makes as if to chase after the assailant, Tim reaches for him with the arm currently not bleeding all over Mayor Dent's nice floors.

"We need to leave," Tim says. "We need to grab my parents and get out of here before someone goes after them next." He squeezes Jason's arm. "Jason, _please_ –"

"Fine," Jason bites out. He taps the comm unit he's wearing and then barks out a command for the driver to bring the car around for them.

When they reach Tim's parents and Azrael, Janet gasps at the blood dripping down Tim's arm. She reaches for him and then pauses, frowning.

"Who did this to you?" Janet asks.

Tim shakes his head. "We need to get to the car."

"But, Tim –"

"No, we need to leave _now_." This has to be related to his House's secrets, whatever they are. No one aside from Tam and Jason knows about Tim's burgeoning quest to change the way that Gotham City runs. If they did, Tim would already be dead. He knows it.

As a group, they leave the party. It doesn't surprise Tim at all that by the time that they clear the doors and are heading down the stairs, the party is back in full swing. A House scion get stabbed right in the midst of the party and it doesn't actually matter.

Gotham City really is a piece of work.

The car is idling out front when they reach it, but the driver isn't someone that Tim recognizes. Actually, even when Tim squints he can't make out a single defining feature on the man's face.

"Where's our driver?" Tim's mother asks, one hand falling to her hip and her holster.

Of course she's armed.

The man takes a step forward. "I found him dead by the garage," he says. "And there was a nasty little surprise waiting for you all underneath the car."

"A bomb?" Janet says.

Their mysterious rescuer nods. "But don't worry, it's been taken care of," he says. "And I'm here to make sure that you all actually make it home."

"But – who _are_ you?"

Tim blinks. "Wait – You're Selina's contact aren't you? You're the man with no face." He ignores the way that his parents look at him and takes a step forward. "Did Selina know what was going to happen in there?"

The man in front of him looks at where Tim's arm is still sluggishly oozing blood and then shakes his head. "No," he says. "She wouldn't have asked me to check the cars if she did. Are you okay?"

Tim shakes his head. "No, but there's a first aid kit in the car and we can get a doctor to come to the House once we're there." It feels good to take charge of a situation. And even though Tim is starting to suspect that it's because he's a little woozy from blood loss, he moves toward the car. "And who are you supposed to be again?"

"You can call me Agent 37."

~

"What's going on, Mother?" Tim asks as he watches his parents avoid his gaze. "You know more than you're telling me and you're going to get me _killed_. What are you two doing that has someone ready to kill _me_ for it?"

In the confines of the speeding car, Tim's voice echoes alarmingly. His parents flinch, but Jason doesn't look away from where he's busy bandaging Tim's arm.

When it looks like neither one of his parents is willing to answer him, Tim shakes his head. "This isn't the time for secrets," he insists. "I could've _died_ in there and for what? Something I didn't even know about? You need to tell me what's going on and how we can fix it."

Janet shakes her head. "Tim, it's not that simple."

Beside Tim, Jason is practically _vibrating_ with tension. He rakes his fingers through his hair, sending the dark strands standing straight up. "Then make it simple because you almost lost your son tonight."

The look that Janet gives Jason is chilling.

"You haven't even been working with our family for a _week_ ," she bites out. "How dare you tell me _anything_ about how I run things?"

Tim shakes his head. "You know he's right," he says softly. "Maybe you didn't know what was going on at first, but you definitely know something _now_ that you're not sharing. And you need to share it. Whoever it is isn't going after you, they're going after me."

His mother's mouth twists, but then she sighs.

"One of the spies I had in place in Elliot House found out something about their scion," she murmurs, reaching for her husband's hand as if she needs that grounding touch. "Something terrible. I managed to get the transmission and files saved, but a few days later they found her dead. Then I caught Marcus sending a transmission through to Elliot House right after that."

Tim blinks rapidly. "What – what did you find?"

"How he plans to make Elliot House as powerful as the Luthors are in Metropolis," Janet says, her voice barely above a whisper. "He's going to kill his mother and wife so that he can take over the House and raise his daughter to be his scion."

"What –"

Janet nods. "He'd frame both deaths as very public accidents and in the wake of scrambling to set him up as the head of Elliot House, he'd have his people cut down anyone that'd stand in his way. He's already set aside money that's been wired to different accounts that definitely _aren't_ his."

"When you say plans, you don't mean that he's actually had someone write down all of this, do you? That’s –" Tim cuts himself off, frowning. This all seems a bit too subtle and neat for a man like Thomas Elliot. "Are you sure that he's the person behind this?"

For the first time, Tim's father joins the conversation.

"Your mother, ah, well she had me look into Marcus' finances yesterday and the trail leads back to one of Elliot's smaller accounts, not the House one."

"And he knows that you know about his plans?"

Janet nods. "He's been calling the House since yesterday and threatening us if we planned to release his secrets," she confesses. "I didn't say anything to you because well – it's Thomas Elliot. For all we knew, Marcus was an easily bribed fluke. I've known Elliot for over twenty years and I never thought that he was capable of this kind of power grab."

The partition separating them from Agent 37 and Azrael slides open.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Agent 37 says in a tone that sounds like he's far from apologetic. "But Thomas Elliot is more than capable of that sort of treachery. That's why I'm here in Gotham actually, to ferret out all of that man's nasty little secrets for my superiors."

Tim doesn't bother to crane his neck so that he can glance at the mysterious man driving them back to the House. He settles for pressing close to Jason and sighing.

"Did _everyone_ but me know that Elliot was moments away from staging a coup?" Tim asks, bitterly. He sighs and just barely manages to keep from lifting his injured arm. "Maybe that's something I should've known?"

"We didn't think that he would go after _you_ ,"Janet insists.

"Except for the way that this is the _second_ time he's had someone come after me," Tim mutters. "Was Marcus the only person on Elliot's payroll?"

The answer that Tim gets from his parents isn't necessarily the one that he wants.

"We've taken care of it," Janet says, her voice decidedly sharp. "There were a few… traitors, but you don't need to worry about them anymore." Which of course means that she's killed them. Or locked them up in one of unused cellars underneath the kitchen.

Wonderful.

"Well you can't 'take care' of Elliot," Jason points out, practically taking the words right out of Tim's mouth. "He's a House scion. _Someone_ would miss him."

Janet scoffs.

"I've been handling House business like this for years before you were born," she says. "Besides, he's been trying to kill the scion of our House. Ruthlessness is required in this situation. If he's working with someone or trying to turn other Houses against ours, then he needs to be put down."

Jason shifts against Tim's side. "Even if that means turning all of Gotham's Houses against you?"

"You don't seem to understand how much my family means to me," Janet parries. "I'd tear the system down if it meant that I would be able to protect them." She shakes her head. "Look, we're almost at the House. Can we _please_ table this discussion until I can get Tim's arm looked at properly?"

~

For the first time in what seems like forever, the House is dark.

Empty of seemingly everyone aside from the guards who eye the car and the faceless man standing beside it with unease and fingers falling to their guns. Only the imperious-looking wave of his mother's hand keeps things from escalating.

"Did you call ahead?" Tim asks his mother as he lets Jason hold him upright on their way through the garage. They're only heading up the one flight of stairs to the small study on the next floor, but every step jostles his injured arm and makes him feel like collapsing.

Agent 37 speaks up from behind them, sounding sheepish. "No, ah. I did. Well, I asked Azrael to do it since I was driving, but the end result is the same. Drake House is essentially on lockdown for the next twenty-four hours. No one's getting in or out."

"You put our House under lockdown?"

Tim can't tell whether his mother is mad or begrudgingly impressed at Agent 37's gall.

Honestly, he also doesn't think that he cares. Tim's vision starts to swim alarmingly and he clutches at Jason as hard as he can, trying to focus past the pain. Thankfully, there's a soft couch right near the entrance of the study and when Jason eases him on to it, Tim sits down and immediately winces when he bangs his arm against the couch.

"This is going to need a little bit more than a bandage," Agent 37 observes. "And _you_ need something for the pain you're doing a terrible job of hiding."

Tim forces himself to look up at the spiral pattern obscuring the man's face. The sight of it makes him nauseous, but he keeps at it, making what he hopes is eye contact. "What – we don't –"

"Don't worry, Tim," Agent 37 says. "Your House has a medical center, doesn't it? You can have a guard run down to get what I need and I'll fix you up right here." In fact, before Janet or Tim can say anything Azrael leaves, presumably in search of medical supplies.

There's something about Agent 37's earnest tone that makes Tim want to trust him. Something familiar.

"Why are you being so helpful?"

Agent 37 balks.

"What do you mean? Selina –"

"Selina wouldn't have asked you to come here," Jason says, his own voice sharp. He takes a step forward, hands clenching into fists as his mouth tightens with anger. "She's not _that_ altruistic. What's your angle? Who're you really working for?"

Agent 37 moves away from Tim's side, his hands up in the air. "My employer has an interest in secrets," he says. "Right now, Elliot House has the most interesting ones. Drake House only happened to be holding on to them."

Realization slowly dawns for Tim.

"The spider," he breathes.

Agent 37's shoulders slump sheepishly. "Yeah. They're an older model that we don't use very often, but they were the only ones I could get."

"So you were spying on us?" Tim asks at the same time that his mother does.

Agent 37 doesn't flinch underneath the combined weight of their respective stares.

"I did what I had to do and I'd do it again," he says. His voice softens for the rest of it. "But I'm willing to help you out now. I'll make sure that you get the information about Elliot's plans to someone that can do something about them – Commissioner Gordon has no loyalty to any of Gotham's Houses and Wayne's been looking for a reason to knock Thomas Elliot down a few pegs – and have a little _chat_ with him about leaving your House alone."

"Why – why would you do that?" Tim asks.

There's a flicker in the spiral pattern and Tim, for a moment, thinks that he's caught a glimpse of Agent 37's smiling face.

"Drake House has secrets of its own," Agent 37 says with a darkly amused note in his voice. "And I'm interested in seeing how they'll play out. Keeping your House intact for now will make sure that happens."

Janet takes a step forward, speaking up for the first time in several minutes. "For now?"

"Who knows," Agent 37 says with a shrug. "The House system could collapse tomorrow and take your House with it."

Tim can't possibly be imagining the way that Agent 37's gaze seems to linger on his face.

He can't know about Tim's plans –

_Can he?_

Just when Tim opens his mouth to ask for – no, _demand_ – answers, Azrael returns with a kit from the medical facilities. Within minutes, Tim finds himself the focus of attention as Agent 37 cleans his wound and then sprays a thin layer of a Drake Industries biomedical innovation over Tim's skin.

Once finished, Agent 37 plucks a package of painkillers out of the depths of the kit.

"Take two of these with food and get some rest," he says.

Tim frowns down at the pills put grabs them anyway. "And just what will _you_ be doing?"

Agent 37 rises to his feet and then jerks his right thumb over his shoulder at Tim's parents. "Strategizing."

~

Tim must have fallen asleep the moment that his head hits the pillow. The last thing that he remembers is Jason undressing him carefully as not to aggravate his injured arm and then –

Blissful nothingness thanks to the painkillers.

The next time that Tim opens his eyes, it's late the next morning. The sun streams in through the window that Tim never remembers to close, flooding the room with golden light. Tim struggles to sit up, biting back a pained moan when he puts his weight on his still-injured arm.

His room is empty, but Tim can hear the faint sounds of the television and Jason's deep voice over that coming from the main part of the suite

The thought makes Tim smile and slip out of bed. His first few steps are unsteady, but by the time that he clears the doorway, he's mostly fine. Well, aside from the persistent ache in his arm and the intense dry mouth caused by the pills, but it's nothing that will kill him. From his vantage point at the doorway, Tim can see that the coffee table in between the couch and loveseat is laid out with a breakfast spread and that Jason is taking bites of a bagel in between talking on his phone.

Surprisingly enough, Tim's stomach gurgles with hunger at the sight.

Of food, not of Jason.

Although he does appreciate the sight of Jason in boxers and a thin grey t-shirt that hides absolutely none of his impressive musculature.

"You're awake," Jason says, a smile on his face. "That's good. I was just coming to wake you up for some food." Jason quickly gets rid of the person on the other end of his phone call and then pats the space of couch next to him. "Come, sit here. You need to watch the news."

Tim blinks, feeling his nose wrinkle. "The news?"

He trots over to Jason's side, feeling more than a little bit exposed in his underwear, and then sits down carefully on the couch. When he turns towards the screen, he recognizes a bird's eye view of the townhouse that Thomas Elliot has lived in from before Tim was born. Police vans and police _officers_ swarm the building, some of them leaving with boxes and others leaving with members of the House's staff.

"Is that --"

"Just watch," Jason murmurs.

Linda Park, a reporter that Tim recognizes as one of Tana's friends, comes on screen standing in front of the great iron fence that delineates the House's property.

"We're here at Elliot House's downtown property where the House scion, Thomas Elliot, has just been arrested on a number of serious charges," she says. "These charges include conspiracy to commit murder and embezzlement. Most damning is that Elliot has been connected with an attack on the Drake House scion that left him injured and one other dead. When asked for a comment, Commissioner Gordon said that --"

Tim waves one hand and mutes the television screen.

"They arrested him?" Tim asks as if he really can't believe it.

And maybe, honestly, he can't.

Jason nods. "I don't know what that Agent 37 did or what was in the files that your mom had, but Commissioner Gordon came by personally to thank her after they served the warrant this morning. They've been at it all day, I think."

"And Agent 37?"

"Gone," Jason mutters as he frowns. "He left a letter for you and his contact information with your mom." Jason sits back against the couch and combs his fingers through his hair as he looks at Tim. "I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about him that's familiar. I feel like I know him, but without a face to go by, I can't be sure."

Tim actually startles a little bit at that. "You too? I _knew_ he was someone familiar, but I thought that maybe he used to work for us or something," Tim says. "Now we just need to narrow it down to people that we both know."

"So basically half of Gotham," Jason teases.

"Shut up," Tim says, finding himself laughing despite himself. He leans back against the warm weight of Jason's arm, stretching out as much as he dares and then sighing at the way that his stomach grumbles again.

Jason doesn't miss that sound. In fact, he's already leaning forward with his eyes on a plate of fruits and cold cuts.

It's a party platter, hors d'oeuvre basically, but Tim takes the entire plate when Jason presses it upon him. He's truly hungry now. Between barely picking at anything at last night's party and then waking up so late in the day, he's not surprised that almost everything looks good.

Selecting a thin slice of prosciutto wrapped around a melon cube, Tim pops it into his mouth. Salty and sweet, the little piece of food does nothing to whet Tim's appetite and he makes it through most of the plate before he realizes that maybe he should offer Jason a piece.

"Try it," Tim says, holding a prosciutto melon cube up to Jason's mouth. "It's good."

Still smiling, Jason opens his mouth and lets Tim feed him, giving one last teasing flick of the tongue that would make Tim's knees weak if he wasn't already sitting down. He chews for a moment and then swallows.

"Not bad," Jason murmurs, "but I can think of something else I'd rather try."

The kiss when it comes is amazing. Light and sweet, it starts out chaste at first before Tim gasps and it deepens, becoming something more. Tim utters a quiet, almost whimpering sound into Jason's mouth, reaching for him due to some mad thread of instinct. Heedless of the fact that his plate is close to falling, Tim tries to move closer, to climb right into Jason' lap and stay there for maybe an eternity.

A hand on his hip stills him.

"You're still injured," Jason points out, gently. "Why don't we wait a little bit longer? You know, just so we're not worried about hurting your arm anymore."

In that moment, Tim realizes that he can see quite clearly how his mother could want to "take care" of Thomas Elliot. If not for him, Tim could be curled up in bed with Jason's arms around him. He could be having sex. He could be --

"You know, you look hot when you're annoyed," Jason murmurs, leaning in so that he can say the words against Tim's left ear. His breath fans out across Tim's skin, tickling him and making him wriggle a bit helplessly, and then he presses a quick kiss to Tim's skin. "But I promised myself that I wouldn't do anything that could set back your healing."

If Tim could kill with his mind, Thomas Elliot would be but a smoldering crater.

"I think I'm starting to wish that my mother _had_ killed Elliot," Tim grumbles. He inches back to his original position on the couch, but allows Jason to exchange his nearly empty plate for one with a more balanced breakfast of eggs, toast, and bacon. In between picking at his food, Tim gestures at Jason with a single crispy piece of bacon. "This isn't fair."

Jason laughs.

At Tim.

But Tim can't even pretend to be mad at him because then Jason leans in and kisses him again. He pulls away before Tim can really get into it and then settles back against his corner of the couch, looking smugger than any one person has any right to be.

"You'll be alright," Jason says, smiling as if he's probably not as frustrated by the lack of sex as Tim is. Well, maybe he's not. Tim's always had a thing for going a little overboard when he's found something or someone that he likes and sex with Jason --hell, even just _touching_ him -- leaves him feeling deliciously out of control. "It wasn't a very deep cut and the skin sealant that Agent 37 used will do most of the hard work. You just can't jump me for a few more hours."

For once, Tim gives into the shockingly childish urge to stick his tongue out at Jason. "You're an ass."

"Yeah, but I'm your ass."

~

Breakfast turns into lazing about in front of the television as every single station in Gotham seems focused on documenting Thomas Elliot's many, many crimes. After a while, Tim doesn't even hunch in on himself at the mention of the previous night's attack. It's just part of the story.

"What do you think will happen to Elliot's daughter?" Tim asks as he watches yet another reporter talk about how noble Elliot House is despite its long history of supporting criminals and criminal elements. "I'm guessing that she'll become House scion, but then what?"

Jason murmurs something that's frankly hard to decipher.

"Hm?"

"Boarding school," Jason says a little louder. "They'll probably send her off to boarding school and keep her away from everyone until people forget that her father tried to kill a bunch of people including her grandmother. And then, they'll watch her to make sure that she's not following in her father's footsteps."

He speaks as if he has experience with that and --

Oh.

He probably does.

Tim presses close to Jason and then squeezes his side gently. "I'm sorry."

"Thanks," Jason says, leaning so that he can press a kiss to the top of Tim's head.

Suddenly, the intercom crackles.

"I hope you two are decent," Janet says across the line. "Because I'm coming in."

Tim bolts up. "What – No!"

Too late. The door to his suite opens and Janet comes in just in time to catch Tim's graceless scramble off of Jason's body. There's no way for either of them to pretend that they hadn't been closer than a bodyguard and his client should be, but instead of frowning at them or firing Jason on the spot, Tim is surprised when his mother simply smiles at them.

"Oh, don't hide on my account," She says in a purring tone almost worthy of Selina. "I figured out that you two were running around from day one. Tim never looks disheveled unless he can help it and he's been a lot happier lately."

Tim struggles to sit up properly. "So you don't mind?"

Oh, of course I _mind_ ," his mother says, somehow still smiling. "But there's not much that I can do about it, can I? You'll be eighteen before we know it. What am I going to do: forbid you to see Jason only for you to fall into his arms on your birthday?"

"Mother –"

"We're hiring another bodyguard for you," his mother says as if Tim hasn't even tried to speak. "Someone that you won't fall for."

Beside Tim, Jason mutters, "I would hope not."

Both Tim and Janet ignore his comments.

"Is that all?" Tim asks, a little annoyance seeping into his tone.

Janet's smile doesn't waver, but it does soften. Brandishing an envelope in one hand, she approaches the couch. When Tim makes to take the envelope from her, she squeezes his hand.

"I'm glad that you're alright," Janet says in a low voice. "I know – I know that the past few days haven't been easy on you, but believe me: I only wanted to protect you. I'll do a better job next time." Another squeeze of the hand later and Janet leaves in a faint cloud of camellia-scented perfume.

"You know," Jason says into the silence left behind in Janet's wake. "Sometimes, she's not _that_ scary."

Tim pauses in the process of tearing open the envelope. "Okay, you keep saying that, but you haven't seen her at her worst," he pauses and then smiles. "But I love her, even when she's terrifying."

Surprisingly, that earns Tim another kiss from Jason and a gentle tug that pulls him back against Jason's broad chest. Jason peers down at the envelope in Tim's hand.

"Is that from Agent 37?"

Tim nods as he finishes opening the envelope. He pulls out a piece of paper covered in a sprawling script and then frowns.

"He wants me to keep doing what I'm doing with my research," Tim says, in a softly stunned tone. "And to get in touch with him if we need any help in sharing the secrets we find out about the House System and Gotham's Houses. He'll be 'around'. "

Jason plucks the sheet of paper out of Tim's hand, quickly skimming it for himself.

"I'd say that he wants to get you killed, but he could've done that last night," Jason murmurs. "But maybe he actually thinks that you can do this without getting us all killed."

He tosses the letter aside carelessly and then strokes one hand over Tim's back in a gentle caress. "But you can change the world later, when you're healed. Deal?"

Tim laughs quietly. "Deal."

**Author's Note:**

> Ah! This was the last story I wrote in 2015 and the first one that I posted in 2016! I'm so proud of it!


End file.
